Latvia’s defense chief said the Baltic nation is making progress in assembling a coalition of almost 20 countries to arm Ukrainian forces with “thousands” of new unmanned aerial vehicles, Ednews informs referring to Bloomberg.
The comments by Defense Minister Andris Spruds are the first indication of the scale of the drone initiative after the plan was unveiled at a meeting with Ukraine’s defense chief, Rustem Umerov, in December. A fresh inventory will help Kyiv’s military in a conflict in which drone warfare has become a significant element in the fighting, he said.
“The primary goal is to do everything so that as many of these drones as possible are also delivered to Ukraine,” Spruds said in an interview in Riga on Monday.
Russia’s military has used barrages of drones and missiles to hit Ukrainian cities, ports and infrastructure since its invasion almost two years ago. The Kremlin launched some 90 drones — almost all of which Ukraine said were were downed by defenses — in a New Year’s Eve attack on targets near the Black Sea port of Odesa and the western city of Lviv.
