Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced that his country plans to buy at least 1 million drones in 2024.
“In total, in 2024, the state plans to purchase at least one million drones. It is important that for the first time, the full real need of the military for drones has been clearly calculated and summarized,” Umerov said in a column for Ukraine’s state news agency, Ukrinform.
Stating that the Ukrainian Defense Ministry ordered the first batch of first-person view (FPV) drones, Umerov said that the ministry is working on effective logistics, cheaper purchases and producing a sufficient number of combat parts.
Umerov further said that the ministry previously did not purchase FPV drones due to “the lack of clear criteria and rules for their application on the battlefield at the legislative level,” though indicating other institutions, such as the Digital Transformation Ministry, have purchased these drones.
“And this is just one example of the lack of systematic procurement for the Armed Forces. The new team of the Ministry of Defense has changed the approaches to planning the supply of weapons and rear property for the military,” he said.
“Ukraine should purchase, first of all, what is needed by the military and has already proven its effectiveness. Every (Ukrainian) hryvnia should be used as efficiently as possible,” Umerov added.
Turkish-made drones used by Ukraine on the battlefield are “playing a huge role in Ukraine,” according to David van Weel, NATO’s assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges.
Ukraine has been using unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), namely Bayraktar TB2s made by the Turkish company Baykar, since the beginning of the war to hunt down Russian military gear from howitzers to air defense systems. Such use of drones with smart ammunition, with possible electronic warfare (EW) assistance was seen before on the battlefield in Syria, Libya and Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Some analysts also suggested that Bayraktar TB2s may have even played a role in the sinking of the Moskva cruiser, a key part of Moscow’s fleet in the Black Sea. The TB2 has been hugely popular in Ukraine and it even became the subject of a patriotic expletive-strewn hit song in the country that mocked Russian troops, with the chorus “Bayraktar, Bayraktar.”
