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Europe says it’s investing $7 billion into Ukraine’s increasingly famed drone industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
It comes after Ukraine’s defense minister estimated that Kyiv needs $6 billion to cover drone costs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
It’s paid by interest on frozen Russian assets, so it’s not clear if all $7 billion is now available.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Europe is poised to inject $7 billion into Ukraine’s drone industry<\/a>, hoping to supercharge mass production for the country’s increasingly renowned low-cost weapons.<\/p>\n The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday that the European Union would “frontload 6 billion euros,” or roughly $7 billion, for Ukrainian drones.<\/p>\n “Ukraine has the ingenuity. What it needs now is scale,” von der Leyen said in her State of the European Union address.<\/p>\n The announced $7 billion would be the biggest official tranche of funding to Ukraine’s drone industry so far.<\/p>\n It’s close to the $6 billion that Ukraine’s defense minister, Denys Shmyhal, has said Kyiv needs to cover this year’s production of first-person-view drones, interceptors, long-range drones, and missiles.<\/p>\n While new, Ukraine’s drone industry has increasingly been in the spotlight for producing cheap but effective weapons<\/a> regularly being used to destroy Russian loitering munitions, armor, artillery, and production facilities.<\/p>\n Importantly, they also allow Kyiv’s troops to harass and halt Russian ground assaults from afar, meaning additional or improved drones could further stifle Moscow’s ability to advance or attrit Ukrainian forces.<\/p>\n The local drone industry is now seen as a globally leading force, driven by a wide range of domestic manufacturers and individual military units. Many of these firms and troops are often strapped for cash, partially relying on volunteer donations and crowdfunding<\/a> to update their drones or stay afloat.<\/p>\n Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy estimated in June that his country had the capacity to make 8 million drones a year, but lacked the funding to do so.<\/p>\n In her speech, von der Leyen said that Ukrainian drones were responsible for at least 23% of Russian equipment losses. Ukrainian officials have said that at least 70% of all reported hits in the war were caused by drones.<\/p>\n She also spoke of Ukraine’s need to fight Russia’s growing Shahed waves, indicating that the money could be used to fund the production of interceptor drones<\/a>.<\/p>\n “So we can use our industrial strength to support Ukraine to counter this drone warfare,” von der Leyen said.<\/p>\n Per von der Leyen, the funding will come from interest on frozen Russian assets.<\/p>\n However, it’s not immediately clear how much of the $7 billion is now ready to be used in Ukraine. Europe estimates that frozen Russian assets can, at most, generate interest of roughly $3.5 billion a year.<\/p>\n Nor has the European Commission publicly detailed plans on how the money will be disbursed or monitored.<\/p>\n Spokespersons for the European Commission did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.<\/p>\n Von der Leyen said that since 2022, Europe has contributed close to $200 billion in financial and military aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n While drones are often associated with the first-person-view, or FPV<\/a>, propeller platforms used to fly into enemy targets with explosives, Ukraine has also been experimenting with a range of uncrewed aerial, naval, and ground systems in combat.<\/p>\n More recently, it’s been codifying more ground-based robots to relieve human soldiers from dangerous frontline combat tasks.<\/p>\n Some of Kyiv’s long-range munitions are also drones, such as the winged platforms<\/a> it’s been using to strike Russia’s production facilities hundreds of miles from the border.<\/p>\n Read the original article on Business Insider<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n