At a meeting on April 30, the Government of Ukraine decided to allocate an additional 15.5 billion UAH ($388 million) to purchase drones.
The Cabinet provided additional funds for drones
The allocated money will be enough for hundreds of thousands of drones.
The Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denys Shmyhal, stated this at the Government meeting.
Today, the government allocated an additional 15.5 billion UAH for the purchase of drones. This is in addition to the 43.3 billion UAH that we have already allocated for drones this year. The funds will go to the State Special Communications Administration, engaged in the relevant procurement.
Denis Shmyhal
Prime Minister of Ukraine
According to him, the allocated funds will provide the Security and Defense Forces with 300,000 drones.
Defence budget expenditures of Ukraine
At the beginning of March 2024, the Cabinet of Ministers had already allocated UAH 5 billion to purchase drones.
However, later President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to establish mass production of drones in Ukraine. The first talks about the large-scale production of drones by Ukraine began in December 2023.
At the beginning of the year, Oleksandr Kamyshin, Minister of Strategic Industries, stated that Ukraine was able to catch up with Russia in terms of producing kamikaze attack drones similar to Iran's Shahed-131 and Shahed-136.
Ukrainian naval drones have become more deadly
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) is working on improving unique maritime drones.
SSU spokesman Artem Dekhtyarenko said this in the national newscast air.
In 2022, there was no alternative to the SSU's maritime attack drones in the world. Existing Western drones were large and unmaneuverable, and could easily be detected by enemy radars. In addition, Western drones did not have a combat unit, because they were used for logistics or intelligence.
Therefore, according to Dekhtyarenko, the SSU decided to develop the concept of its own maritime strike drone, which was supposed to work in the noise range at the border of two environments — water and air.
It is precisely because of its small size that hydroacoustics cannot hear it from below, and radars do not notice it from above. Moreover, the body of the drone is made of radio-absorbing material. This concept fully confirmed its inconspicuousness and striking power during operations conducted by the SSU together with the Navy. Such drones can only be seen visually, not on a surveillance system.
In general, as the SSU spokesman said, these naval drones hit 11 ships of the Russian Federation, as well as the Crimean bridge, which the Russian Federation used to supply weapons for the war.
The cost of SSU drones is estimated at 8.5 million hryvnias, while the Russian ships they destroy are worth tens of millions of dollars.
