The Bayraktar Brothers: money’s not the most important thing - we’re doing it for Ukraine
The makers of the military drone talk to the BBC about their beginnings, family connections and Russia's war in Ukraine.
By Dzhafer Umerov and Tatiana Yanutsevich
Bayraktar drones have become a sort of symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion, while the word ‘Bayraktar’ has itself entered into popular culture. Two brothers are behind the drone, Haluk and Selçuk Bayraktar. They rarely give interviews but agreed to talk to the BBC’s Dzhafer Umerov and Tatiana Yanutsevich.
We met the Bayraktar brothers at their office in a distant suburb of Istanbul. The surrounding area and the building itself bring to mind a western university campus rather than a company producing the military drones that have changed the course of wars around the globe.
At the staff entrance, there’s a choice of free books about the Ottoman Empire, and alongside them, a publication about how to pray correctly. There are few offices and a lot of open space. And the feeling that you’re in a university is accentuated by the workers themselves: their average age is 29-30, according to the brothers.
Upstairs, there are three offices in a row: one for each of the three brothers. Our agreement was to speak with the two elder brothers. Ahmet, the youngest, is not in the public eye and, according to the press service, is not involved with the drones.
The door to his office was open, and amid a cloud of cigarette smoke one could spot a Turkish flag and the Ottoman coat of arms on the wall. The three rooms were arranged according to the brothers’ ages, perhaps reminding us that we’re in conservative Turkey, where family affairs matter.
The first belongs to the oldest, Haluk, CEO and general director of the company. It’s brightly lit in his office, and there’s a picture on the wall of a traditional Ukrainian wooden house, made out of amber. On the coffee table, a soft toy version of the Bayraktar TB2 drone sports Ukraine’s national trident symbol.
The first thing he did was to proudly show off the state award ‘For Service’ that he was presented with in Kyiv in 2020 by the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Over the course of the interview, Haluk frequently mentions his father Özdemir, who died last year. He also comes up in our conversation with Selçuk, the company’s technical director, thought of as the ‘architect’ of the Bayraktar drones.
Becoming Erdoğan’s son-in-law
According to Haluk, it was his father – an amateur pilot – who instilled in him a love of aviation. Özdemir Bayraktar founded the company in 1984 to produce spare parts for cars.
Apart from manufacturing, he was active in politics, which is how he became acquainted with the man who would become Turkey’s president today, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Both were members of the islamist Welfare Party, which was banned in 1998. The authorities believed it undermined the secular values on which Turkey’s first president, Kemal Atatürk, founded the republic. As a consequence, the party was re-registered as the Justice and Development Party, and now it governs Turkey.
In 2016, the two politicians with closely-aligned views became closer still when Selçuk married Erdoğan’s daughter, Sümeyye. Many were critical of the idea that connections with the head of state were the basis for the company’s flourishing. Selçuk doesn’t accept this.
“We started manufacturing a drone back in the 2000s, and it was in certain sense the life’s work of my father, brother, mother and myself, too,” he says. The wedding was in 2016, he points out, and by that date the first drones – the Mini and the TB1 – had already been developed. The marriage caused political criticism, but otherwise life remains unchanged, he says.
The brothers recall that the Bayraktar family was always keen on manufacturing, and they themselves used to lend a hand in the factory in childhood – programming the machine tools in parallel with doing their schoolwork. At the time, Selçuk was studying at one of the most prestigious lycées in Istanbul, Robert College.
Both brothers completed their higher education in Turkey and the US, where Selçuk studied drone manufacturing. Afterwards, they returned to Turkey to “develop our country’s technological potential”, and start working at their father’s company, Baykar.
‘Standard-bearers of aviation’ and a ‘world of equal rights’
The brothers recount how they started making drones with a very small team of engineers, and invested their own money in the company.
One of the reasons for their success, they say, are the frequent discussions with soldiers who have participated in hostilities, which helps them modify the drones to meet military needs.
They chose the family name for the drones, the brothers say, because translated from Turkish, ‘Bayraktar’ means ‘standard-bearer’, which they felt suited the devices perfectly. “We wanted to be standard-bearers of aviation in which paradigms are changed,” says Selçuk.
Haluk, meanwhile, says that he hopes that the Bayraktar can play its part in creating a more just and equal world.
And at this point, we naturally come to the war in Ukraine, where its armed forces are actively using the Bayraktar TB2 against Russian troops. Videos of how they destroy Russian armour have travelled round the world.
For Ukrainians, the Turkish drones have become a symbol of resistance to Russian aggression. They’ve composed songs about them, named children and pets after them, and the word Bayraktar has gradually begun to occupy a place in the pop culture of Ukraine, and among the Ukrainian diaspora worldwide.
The brothers openly support Ukraine and have donated drones several times to the Ukrainian military, and have sent money raised by volunteers to support refugees from the war. When asked how he feels about the Bayraktar becoming a kind of symbol of freedom for Ukrainians, Haluk says he is proud that technology developed by them is supporting the country’s struggle for independence.
He adds that Ukraine is fighting for a free world, while Selçuk calls Russia’s invasion ‘unjust and illegal’, and the Ukrainians a noble people.
How the Bayraktar brothers are supporting Ukraine
Cooperation between Bayraktar and Ukraine began prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion. Following the annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s military support for the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Kyiv started searching for different means of defence.
Haluk says that Ukraine approached many countries for drones but that only Turkey agreed.
“The Bayraktar system has been in use in Ukraine since 2018,” he notes. “At the same time, many important defence sector projects with Ukraine have been signed that will facilitate our cooperation in different technological areas.”
Company specialists, he says, have trained many Ukrainian soldiers to fly the Bayraktar TB2. Recently one Ukrainian officer with whom they had become friendly was injured in a Russian attack, and died of his wounds. Representatives of the company attended his funeral and the brothers intend to help his family.
“When the war began, we sent ten trucks with humanitarian aid, including provisions, baby food and hygiene products,” says Haluk. “Ukraine is a country we have close relations with. We share the pain of Ukrainians, and honour their defence of their lands, and their heroic struggle.”
It sounds very fine, but there are critics who say that Ukraine is just one more market in which the company is selling their weapons. How do the brothers respond? Haluk doesn’t hide that there’s a commercial side, but says from the start of the war, the company has put a lot of effort into its work with Ukraine.
“The main priority for us is to establish strong relations and develop cooperation in the interests of both parties,” he says. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, he admits, interest in Bayraktar drones has gone up - as indeed have sales. Prior to the fighting there, drones were successfully deployed by Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as in Syria and Libya. Often, Russia was on the opposing side of the conflict.
“Money is not the most important thing”
The natural question is what the response has been from Russia.
“We’re a company developing technology,” says Haluk. “We have our goals. We are trying to play our part in our country’s development, as well as that of countries which are our strategic partners. We don’t use the technology ourselves – we give it to others to use.”
It’s up to Ukraine’s military to decide when to deploy the drones, he says. “It’s a product like any other,” he says. “Of course, there’s a lot of libellous talk in the Russian media, because our systems are destroying their air defences and armour. But in the final analysis, we are a company that is offering a technology”.
He doesn’t hide that Bayraktar drones are “playing their part in Ukraine’s battle for independence. We’re trying to ensure their role is the best it can be.”
“What if Moscow were to offer you a lot of money? Would you sell Bayraktars to them, too?,” we ask.
“Money is not the most important thing. Money and material goods were never the point of our business,” Haluk states. “Our friendship and cooperation with Ukraine goes back many years. So in truth, there’s no amount of money that could make us to sell them [to Moscow]. Right now, all our support is for Ukraine, because the country is undergoing an unjust, aggressive and indefensible attack. So nothing will overshadow our cooperation with Ukraine, however much money is offered. Our position on this is perfectly clear.”
Our interview took place on the day the Turkish president allegedly told a party meeting that Vladimir Putin wants to access the drones. Haluk was advised by his press office not to use the name ‘Putin’ in the interview, but only to speak of ‘Russia’. Selçuk completely refused to comment, saying it was a matter of state. But it’s clear from Haluk’s words that there’ll be no cooperation with Russia, at least for the duration of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
When asked how decisions are made about who will be supplied with drones, Haluk says they are made jointly by the company and by the Turkish state. But it seems Ankara gets the final word - and takes account of its geopolitical interests.
It’s known that Moscow has shown an interest in Iran’s Shahed 129. Selçuk says he is not familiar with its technical specification, but adds that the Bayraktar is the best in its class.
“No other pilotless aircraft has recommended itself so well in battle,” he is keen to stress.
The role of ‘Bayraktars’ in warfare
Pavel Aksyonov, BBC Russian Defence Correspondent:
The Baykar Bayraktar TB2 has become the star of the show among medium-altitude long-endurance – or MALE – UAVs, even though there are plenty of drones on the market with high tactical-technical specifications.
It’s basically because Bayraktar’s ‘biography’ has come together successfully: the drone has been deployed in several conflicts at the same time almost without facing resistance. Prior to Ukraine it was used reasonably successfully by the army of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh; by Turkey, during its ‘Spring Shield’ operation in February 2020; and before that in Libya against the forces of General Haftar.
Before Ukraine, the Bayraktar not only conducted surveillance but also struck at targets in virtual ‘laboratory conditions’ – in other words, in the absence of well-organised anti-aircraft defences.
Strikes by the drone, often from a high altitude, were frequently stunning: you can see in videos, shot by its built-in camera, how the bombs landed on targets where enemy forces were completely unaware.
Ground targets ceased to be so relevant once Bayraktars faced active air defence systems in Ukraine. After that, drones began to be used for more traditional tasks for the class – observation, target spotting and surveillance.
It’s less glamourous work, but no less important. Such devices cannot replace assault aviation – for example, bombers, fighters or helicopters. The payload is lower than with piloted aircraft, and they’re slower and more vulnerable.
But the MALE drones virtually of themselves created a new class of airborne device – along with the tactics for their use.
It’s hard to overstate the value of their ability to remain in flight for long periods while engaging in observation and operational-tactical surveillance.
The Bayraktar TB2 isn’t the only such drone in its class. China produces the ‘Wing Loong’ drone, and has exported it to Egypt, Kazakhstan, the UAE and other countries. Another well-known drone in the class is Israel’s ‘IAI Heron’, sold to many countries, including Turkey itself.
Finally, there’s the American ‘MQ-9 Reaper’, generally considered among the most effective aircraft in its class, and the follow-up from the legendary ‘MQ-1 Predator’ that flew in the 1990s.
The Bayraktar, then, is not an especially exceptional drone: to a large extent, it simply showed up at the right place at the right time.
Rob Lee, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C.:
In Ukraine, Bayraktars played a useful role, but mostly it was a complimentary role as opposed to fighters and midrange aviation.
In the first weeks of the war they did strikes on Russian vehicles and Russian air-defence systems, because the Russians didn't conduct operations in a combined arms forces fashion exposing lots of weaknesses.
Once Russia started to fight the way it was supposed to fight, we haven’t seen TB2s really conduct strikes on Russian vehicles, since around March, with exception of the Snake Island where there had been strikes on Russian landing crafts and ships. They have also helped to locate targets for other weapons, Harpoon missiles in one case.
Since March, they don’t seem to have significant role in the fighting in the East [Donbass region], either. Partly because Russia has pretty strong air defence systems there, and when [Ukrainians] tried to use them they got shot down.
So, it is a mixed picture. The role they played at the beginning of the war was important. They were doing strikes on Russian convoys in the first two weeks. But, for example, comparing to Nagorno Karabakh where they played decisive role and were critical to Azerbaijan's success, it was because Armenians didn't have air defence capable to counter them. Ukraine has to deal with a country which has much stronger air defence system.
What is important in one war may not be as important in another war. Conditions are different, geography is different. TB2s can play different roles, because of the optics they can see at a big distance and still be useful.
In Karabakh, we saw TB2s hovering above Armenian tanks and then using their own munitions. We haven’t seen that in Ukraine since March. In some conditions, for a country that doesn’t have a strong air force [Bayraktars] could be a smart idea, they are cheaper than other UCAVs [unmanned combat aerial vehicles]. TB2s are effective, but there are no wonder weapons that change everything.
Translated by Chris Booth.
Read this story in Russian here.