Ukraine is trying to buy a million drones

Ukraine's defense minister said on Monday that his country plans to purchase at least a million drones in 2024, according to Anadolu News Agency. In an interview with the domestic media of this country, Rostam Umarov said: For the first time, we felt the real need of the army for drones. He stated that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has ordered the first batch of first-person view (FPV) drones, and added: Ukraine is providing the necessary equipment for its counter-offensive operations against Russia. The Minister of Defense of Ukraine also said that the ministry had not previously purchased drones with a first-person view due to their lack of effectiveness on the battlefield. This summer, the head of the Ukrainian Special Communications Service, Yuriy Shchigol, said that Kyiv’s goal is to purchase 200 thousand drones this year. The announcements come at a time when the Ukrainian government needs financial help from Western countries, especially the United States, to continue the war, but Joe Biden's government has so far failed to get congressional approval to pay new financial aid to Kyiv. The Kyiv official's comment about the Ukrainian drone program came in the context of Russian officials repeatedly citing Ukraine in recent months as the reason for drone attacks on areas of the Crimean Peninsula, as well as on Russian territory. The crisis between Russia and Ukraine began after Moscow expressed concern about NATO's eastward expansion and Western countries' neglect of the country's security problems.