KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine plans to purchase around 4.5 million first-person view (FPV) drones in 2025, Kyiv’s defence ministry said on Monday, more than doubling last year’s rate as its war with Russia grows increasingly hi-tech.
Both sides have come to rely on cheaper and more effective alternatives to conventional artillery, and Ukrainian officials have said the majority of Russian troops and vehicles are now hit by drones.
In a statement, Hlib Kanevsky, director of the ministry’s procurement policy department, said Ukraine last year had purchased more than 1.5 million such drones – 96% of them from Ukrainian manufacturers and suppliers.
“This year, the figures will be even higher, because the capabilities of the domestic defence industry in 2025 are approximately 4.5 million FPV drones,” he said. “And the Ministry of Defence plans to purchase them all.”
The ministry would allocate the equivalent of more than $2.6 billion for the plan, he said.
Small, inexpensive FPV drones are controlled by pilots on the ground and often crash into targets, laden with explosives.
Ukraine, which is seeking strong security guarantees from its partners before agreeing to any peace talks with Russia, is developing its own defence industry to wean itself off reliance on Western partners.
That effort also includes long-range drones and unmanned ground vehicles.
In a separate statement on Monday, Kyiv’s top general Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukrainian drones had destroyed 22% more targets last month compared to January, but added that Russian forces were also adapting.
“We simply have no right to lag behind the enemy in those areas of technological warfare where we should be arming and strengthening ourselves by our own resources,” Syrskyi said.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk and Anastasiia Malenko; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
