Whats more crazy to me, that they are trying to claim some moral highground. They openly know they are stealing power from the dragons, that they are hunting them not because of morality or because they are a threat, but because they want their power.
It just makes no sense at all. They are clearly a militaristic nation, their excuses should be that they "need the power to survive" or "they are countering a danger". All justifications of why its needed acknowledging that what they are doing kills innocents, but claiming its necessary. But they went with this flimsy we do this because dragons are all evil is so blatantly lies that not even their own people could believe it. It all falls apart the moment they are going out and hunting down those living peaceful lives. As is they are just poorly written evil for the sake of evil, not even bothering to hide what they are from themselves. Every other nation would be doing everything to eliminate such a dangerous group.
Hell this empire literally put the entire world in danger, they started a unprovoked war on dragons that nearly ended the world just to make weapons for use against other nations. The other nations would purge them.