Germany Funds One of Ukraine's Largest Drone Orders

Germany is funding the delivery of 50,000 attack drones to Ukraine, which, according to available information, represents one of the largest Western orders for unmanned systems since the start of the war.

The drones are Shrike FPV models manufactured by the Ukrainian company SkyFall, using software from the American company Auterion for autonomous tracking of moving targets during the final phase of flight.

Auterion CEO Lorenz Meier said the contract is worth approximately €90m ($103m), and that some of the drones have already been delivered to Kyiv, with the remainder scheduled to arrive later this year.

SkyFall confirmed Germany's participation in financing the deal but did not disclose further details. Neither Berlin nor Ukraine's ministry of defense has commented on the contract.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is increasingly relying on unmanned systems for its defense, deploying them on a large scale against Russian forces on a daily basis.

(Reuters, mja)