Ukraine to hand combat units $60 million monthly for new drones

PARIS — Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence will provide its combat units with 2.5 billion hryvnia (US$60 million) of direct funding per month to procure their own drones, in a move to allow commanders in the field to buy the equipment they need rather than rely on centralized purchasing.

The ministry already provided 2.1 billion hryvia directly to combat units in December for buying drones, and decided to scale up the initiative based on that experience, officials said in a Jan. 22 statement . Allowing troops to buy unmanned aerial vehicles directly allowed for rapid fulfillment of service members’ needs while increasing diversification, the ministry said.

“Commanders of the units will have the flexibility to use these funds to acquire the drones that are the most effective for carrying out mission requirements at the front,” Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov said in the statement. “This marks another step towards building a highly flexible system to ensure the military has everything necessary for Ukraine’s defense.”

Ukraine has been a crucible for drone innovation as it fights off Russia’s invasion, with troops using unmanned systems for everything from intelligence gathering to strike operations, as decoys or for laying mines. Western militaries are closely studying the new ways UAVs are being used on the Ukrainian battlefield – including air-to-air drone combat, use of artificial intelligence, fiber-optic controls, bomber drones and more – to see what lessons to apply to their own forces.

The funds to buy drones will be distributed among the brigades of the armed forces after Ukraine’s Cabinet of ministers backed the proposal by the ministry, the MoD said.

Drones can be made more profitably in Ukraine than anywhere else in Europe, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier in January . The country raised its drone manufacturing capacity to 4 million units a year, the president said at a defense industry forum in October, compared with production of about 300,000 drones in 2023.

Domestic production accounted for more than 96% of the drones used by the armed forces, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said last month. The Ministry of Defence, together with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, had contracted 1.6 million UAVs of various types in the first 10 months of 2024, with 1.3 million drones delivered, it said in October.

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

巴黎——乌克兰国防部将每月向其作战部队提供 25 亿格里夫纳（6000 万美元）的直接资金，用于采购自己的无人机，此举旨在让一线指挥官能够购买他们需要的装备，而不是依赖集中采购。

国防部官员在1月22日的一份声明中表示，国防部已于去年12月直接向作战部队拨款21亿格里夫纳用于购买无人机，并决定根据这一经验扩大该计划的规模。国防部称，允许部队直接购买无人机既能快速满足官兵的需求，又能增加装备的多样性。

国防部长鲁斯捷姆·乌梅罗夫在声明中表示：“各部队指挥官可灵活运用这些资金，采购最适合前线任务需求的无人机。这标志着乌克兰在构建高度灵活的国防体系方面又迈出了重要一步，以确保军队拥有保卫乌克兰所需的一切。”

在乌克兰抵御俄罗斯入侵的过程中，无人机技术已成为创新发展的熔炉。乌克兰军队使用无人系统执行各种任务，从情报收集到打击行动，再到用作诱饵和布雷，无所不包。西方军队正在密切研究乌克兰战场上无人机的新型使用方式——包括空对空无人机作战、人工智能应用、光纤控制、轰炸无人机等等——以期从中汲取经验教训并应用到自身部队中。

国防部表示，在乌克兰内阁部长会议支持国防部的提议后，购买无人机的资金将分配给武装部队的各个旅。

乌克兰总统泽连斯基1月初曾表示，在乌克兰生产无人机比在欧洲其他任何地方都更有利可图。他在10月份的一次国防工业论坛上表示，乌克兰已将其无人机年产能提高到400万架，而预计到2023年，该国无人机年产量约为30万架。

乌克兰总理杰尼斯·什米加尔上个月表示，乌克兰武装部队使用的无人机中，超过96%为国产无人机。国防部在10月份表示，国防部与乌克兰数字化转型部已签订合同，在2024年前10个月订购160万架各类无人机，其中130万架已交付。

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。