Ukrainian Defense Ministry signs 16 contracts with domestic UAV manufacturers

The ministry said this in a post on Facebook, according to Ukrinform.

"In 2023, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry will increase the procurement of UAVs for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Taking into account the needs and requests of the Ukrainian army in 2023, about UAH 20 billion should be earmarked for this segment. This issue was discussed at a joint meeting of representatives of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and domestic develers and manufacturers of UAVs," the post read.

It was noted at the meeting that the Ukrainian Defense Ministry is deepening coeration with Ukrainian develers and manufacturers of UAVs. In particular, 16 state contracts with domestic manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicles have recently been concluded. Moreover, thanks to the work carried out by the specialists of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the procedure for admitting UAVs to use in the army is the simplest in Eure.

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After the introduction of a new approval procedure, which used to last one-and-a-half to two years and now takes only weeks, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry received 75 applications for various types of UAVs from Ukrainian manufacturers from November 2022 to January 2023. Thirteen of them have already received codification, and technical conditions have been approved. Three more types of UAVs are at the stage of codification.

The participants in the joint meeting outlined tasks and steps for improving regulatory procedures. These prosals put forward by the Defense Ministry were submitted for discussion by the coordination staff with the participation of Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov and Defense Minister eksii Reznikov.

Earlier reports said that 1,711 drones had already been contracted as part of Ukraine's Army of Drones project, and almost 1,000 of them had been handed over to Ukrainian defenders.