UK to supply drones to Ukraine, boost munitions manufacture

The UK and Latvia will jointly lead a capability coalition, which will see thousands of drones supplied to Ukraine, including first-person view (FPV) drones, which have proven highly effective on the battlefield.

As part of the coalition, the UK will scale up and streamline the West’s provision of FPV drones which have proven highly effective on the battlefield since Russia’s full-scale invasion. They provide their operators with situational awareness to target enemy positions, armoured vehicles, and ships with explosive ordnance.

By creating a competition to produce these drones at scale and at an affordable price point, the UK will leverage the strength of Western industry. This is the first project to be launched from the £200 million ($385 million) drone package announced by the British Prime Minister in January this year. It will see the UK order thousands of FPV drones for Ukraine, including from UK manufacturers.

“The UK continues to do all we can to give Ukraine what it needs – upping our aid to £2.5 billion [$4.8 billion] this year and committing £200m to manufacture drones, making us Ukraine’s largest drone supplier,” said Defence Secretary Grant Shapps.

“Today, we’re going even further. I’m proud to announce that the UK and Latvia will co-lead an international coalition to build Ukraine’s vital drone capabilities. Together, we will give Ukraine the capabilities it needs to defend itself and win this war, to ensure that Putin fails in his illegal and barbaric ambitions.”

In the margins of a planned NATO summit in Washington scheduled for July, Shapps will bring together his counterparts from 13 NATO Allies and Sweden to sign an agreement on two new multinational procurement initiatives focusing on munitions and missiles.

Spearheaded by the UK, these initiatives aim to increase defence industrial capacity across the Euro-Atlantic area, replenish stockpiles at pace and continue support to Ukraine. This multinational approach offers a scalable solution for nations to jointly procure more of the missile and munition types that NATO and Ukraine need, says the UK MoD.

The UK is also working with NATO Allies Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States to deliver priority air defence equipment to Ukraine. This partnership, which Canada recently joined, has so far delivered hundreds of short and medium air defence missiles and systems to keep Ukraine’s cities safe from Russian bombardment.