Super Drones: Reuters reports that Germany will finance the purchase of 50,000 FPV attack drones for Ukraine. Some of the drones have already been handed over to the Ukrainian government. The Shrike is an FPV attack drone – the special feature of the order is the software. Auterion claims its system helps drones autonomously track and engage moving targets during the final stages of flight. Separately, the UK said it would provide 150,000 drones to Ukraine this year as part of a wider £752 million funding package.
KYIV JULY 14: Reuters reports that Germany will finance the purchase of 50,000 FPV attack drones for Ukraine. This is one of the largest known drone orders for Kyiv financed by a Western government. The drones in question are Shrike drones from the Ukrainian manufacturer SkyFall.
Some of the drones have already been handed over to the Ukrainian government, and the rest are expected to be delivered later this year. The Shrike is an FPV attack drone that has been in use by Ukraine since 2023. The new version of the Shrike, the 10-F, developed by SkyFall in collaboration with the British company Skycutter, recently took first place in the first round of the Pentagon’s competition .
This competition is part of a $1.1 billion initiative to procure hundreds of thousands of attack drones. The special feature of the order is not only the quantity, but also the software. Auterion claims its system helps drones autonomously track and engage moving targets during the final stages of flight. This is especially important for Ukraine in the context of electronic warfare, where conventional FPV drone control becomes more challenging.
Separately, the UK said in June it would provide 150,000 drones to Ukraine this year as part of a wider £752 million funding package. This is bad news for Russia, say military observers. Western aid to Ukraine is increasingly shifting from individual deliveries of expensive systems to the mass production of cheap attack drones. This is precisely the type of warfare where quantity, speed of delivery, and end-game autonomy can change the situation on the front line more quickly than traditional, long-term defense programs. Moscow will be one of main targets.
As previously reported that Kyiv and Berlin are launching a joint anti-ballistic missile program , under which Ukrainian and German companies will develop and produce interceptor missiles. An agreement on the joint development and production of an air defense system was signed at the Ramstein meeting on June 18.
