Today at 11:47
Germany is set to fund the acquisition of 50,000 strike drones destined for Ukraine, according to a Reuters report citing its own source, as relayed by UATV English.
The deal reportedly ranks among the largest known drone procurement efforts by a Western government on Kyiv’s behalf.
At the center of the order are Shrike loitering munitions, manufactured by Ukrainian drone company SkyFall and integrated with software from the US defense-tech firm Auterion. This software gives the drones the ability to autonomously track and strike moving targets during the final phase of flight.
Throughout more than four years of war with Russia, Ukraine has come to depend heavily on unmanned systems, producing millions of drones each year and launching thousands of drone strikes daily.
Auterion CEO Lorenz Meier confirmed the contract’s value at roughly €90 million, funded by a European nation. He said a portion of the drones have already reached the Ukrainian government, with the remainder scheduled for delivery later this year.
SkyFall acknowledged Germany’s role in the deal but declined to elaborate on specific purchase details. Both the Ukrainian and German defense ministries chose not to comment when asked.
Shrike drones — a low-cost model that Ukraine has used since 2023 — have recently seen growing demand internationally. A variant known as Shrike 10-F, jointly developed by SkyFall and British firm Skycutter, recently ranked first in the opening round of a Pentagon competition tied to a $1.1 billion program aimed at procuring hundreds of thousands of one-way attack drones.
Meier noted that Auterion is contributing to a broader effort to deliver 100,000 drones to Ukraine this year, working alongside multiple hardware manufacturers backed by Western governments. This includes a separate $50 million Pentagon contract covering 33,000 drones, which he said have already arrived in Ukraine.
As previously reported, a US Army software development unit created the Shrike targeting software, which uses artificial intelligence to cut the time needed to identify and strike a target from 15 minutes down to just one minute.
Read also: Lebanon Must Disarm a Power Stronger Than the State. The South Is the Test of Whether It Can
