As Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive against invading Russian troops attempts to increase momentum, the country is again turning to the same drones that have allowed it to defy Moscow’s far bigger and better-equipped army for nearly 18 months.
Ukraine made a pair of announcements concerning its increased drone activities, as it seeks to accelerate the thus far sluggish counteroffensive against Russian forces in the east and south of the nation. The most immediate action comes with the declaration Kyiv is sending an additional 1,700 UAVs in support of frontline efforts to shift the somewhat slow initial advances into higher gear.
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In doing so, Mykhailo Fedorov – Ukraine vice prime minister for Innovation, Development of Education, Science and Technologies, and minister of Digital Transformation – said the 1,700 drones being sent to those positions include a mix of both smaller and larger military-grade, artificial intelligence-enhanced craft.
“Among them are strike and reconnaissance copters,” Fedorov tweeted in a video with the fleet of diverse UAVs serving as background. “These drones are equipped with AI that will help to effectively recognize and then destroy (Russian) targets.”
Though Ukraine has had some success over the past months in pushing Russians from positions they and their allies have occupied in the eastern part of the country, the new drone reinforcements aim to speed and strengthen the counteroffensive’s advances in the south.
A major objective of that is to drive Kremlin forces back into Crimea, and cut the peninsula off from adjacent territories Russia now relies on for troop and supply movements.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced the nation was planning to invest over $1 billion in domestic drone production as part of Kyiv’s efforts to drive Russian armed forces back across their shared borders.
The initiative marks another major development in Ukraine’s Army of Drones campaign.
That started as a fundraising campaign to buy mostly foreign-made UAVs. Over time, however, it has increasingly sought to encourage domestic manufacturing under the wider government objective to stimulate the nation’s war-ravaged economy by generating its own, homemade tools of national defense.
Under that drive, Shmyhal said various economic and import restrictions had been eased over the past year to facilitate the strengthening of various sectors – one result of which has been a flourishing of drone-making companies.
“At that time there were less than a dozen of them,” said Shmyhal of the decision to shift policy. “Today, there are more than 40 companies that have sealed contracts with the government, and the UAV production has increased tenfold. For its part, the government has allocated UAH 40 billion ($1.08 billion) this year, which we will invest in Ukrainian drone manufacturers.”
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The Army of Drones program, he added, had raised about 10% of that amount for Ukraine’s procurement of UAVs, and has already financed the training of 10,000 pilots, with another 10,000 currently receiving instruction.
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