Ukraine’s military plans to invest nearly $550 million in drones as the country ponders its next moves in its ongoing fight against Russia, according to a report on Monday.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that Ukraine is increasing the acquisition of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, for reconnaissance and assault purposes this year and plans to allocate around $547.05 million for this segment.
FILE: Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov attends a Ukraine Defense contact group meeting as part of the NATO Council of Defense Ministers at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels on October 12, 2022.
(KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP via Getty Images)
In the 11 months of fighting, Ukraine has received significant supplies of UAVS from its partners, including missile-equipped Bayraktar TB2s from Turkey and a Black Hornet reconnaissance drone from Norway.
Now, Kyiv is trying to boost domestic production to build what some officials have framed as a “drone army,” Reuters reported.
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“Independence from the military-industrial complex is one of the factors of the country’s defense capability,” Reznikov wrote on Facebook.
The Ukrainian military said last week that it would start creating assault drone companies within its armed forces. Reznikov said the Defense Ministry had received applications proposing 75 different drones made in Ukraine.
Emergency workers clear rubble after a Russian rocket hit a multi-storey building, leaving many people under the rubble, in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Saturday, January 14.
(AP/Evgeny Maloletka)
“After consultations with the General Staff of the Armed Forces, after the tests, the Ministry of Denso has already concluded 16 state contracts with Ukrainian manufacturers of UAVs,” Reznikov said.
Reznikov’s update comes after Kyiv won tank pledges last week from the US and Germany.
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Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hinted on Monday at the possibility of more upcoming pledges, saying that “any activity aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s defense powers is under consultation with our NATO partners.”
Military analysts say more aid is crucial if Ukraine is to block an expected Russian spring offensive and launch its own effort to push back Russian forces.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stands at the podium during a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Kyiv, Ukraine, July 3, 2022.
(AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
“The pattern of Western aid delivery has powerfully shaped the pattern of this conflict,” the US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said late Sunday.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said keeping pace with support from allies is crucial.
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“The speed of supply has been and will be one of the key factors in this war. Russia hopes to drag out the war, to exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon,” he told his late-night paper on Sunday. video address “We must speed up events, speed up the supply and opening of new weapons options necessary for Ukraine.”
Associated Press contributed to this report.
