Lithuania to Crowdfund 500 Kamikaze Drones for Ukraine

Lithuanian people have launched a campaign to raise €300,000 to buy 500 First-Person View (FPV) kamikaze drones.

"The war in Ukraine will go down in world military history as a war of ever-evolving drone technologies. Along with combat Bayraktars , commercial DJIs and various fixed-wing drones, FPV-type kamikaze drones are now becoming increasingly important in the war between Ukraine and Russia,” Raimundas Aleknavičius, founder of the "Maži, bet stiprūs" (Small but Strong) organization that initiated the campaign was quoted as saying by news outlet Delfi.

The crowdfunding campaign named “Drone Songs” that started on July 19 will last until August 24, the day Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day.

"Ukraine is born every day when it doesn't die. Therefore, a swarm of 500 drones sent by Lithuania on the occasion of the country's Independence Day will be the best gift we can give it now," Aleknavičius added.

Russian state media reported on Thursday that one of its Upyr FPV drones was used to hit a boat with a Ukrainian landing party moving along the Dnieper River toward the Antonovka Bridge.

The Upyr FPV drone was engineered in the Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals and is designed to strike enemy targets in the front’s depth and wipe out armor at sheltered positions. The drone can carry grenades for RPG-7 grenade launchers, such as PG-7VL rockets, RKG-3M anti-tank hand grenades, and also high-explosive fragmentation shells made by the military directly on the battlefield.