Ukraine Military to Spend $544 Million on Locally-made Drones

Widespread usage of drones in the Ukraine War has shown they can be effective while causing minimum collateral damage, pushing the country’s defense ministry to invest $544 million in 2023 to produce them locally.

Oleksii Reznikov, Ukrainian defense minister, told UNN in an interview that the sum will be spent on various types of drones: aerial, ground, surface, and underwater.

“This year, we planned UAH 20 billion ($544 million) in the budget for the purchase of drones. These are UAVs of different types. These, in particular, are the Ukrainian samples that we have adopted over the past half of the year – these are our new drones,” the minister said.

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The drones Kyiv plans to manufacture locally are Leleka-100, А1-SM Furia, Windhover, PD-2 and ACS-3.

Reconnaissance and strike UAVs are widely used in the war with the Russian Federation. One of the main tasks of these drones in the war is the adjustment of artillery fire, which allows them to strike with high accuracy.