Ukraine launched its Unmanned Systems Forces, a new branch of its military focused on drone warfare that officials said was the first of its kind, according to ABC News.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had announced the establishment of the branch in 2024, saying that drones have proven their effectiveness in battles with Russian occupiers on land, in the sky and at sea.
“Ukraine is the only country in the world that has created the Unmanned Systems Forces, and this gives hope for the creation of a coalition of countries,” said Ivan Havryliuk, deputy minister of Defense of Ukraine.
Oleksandr Yarmak, the platoon unrewed aerial vehicle commander, called the new branch a historical one of a global scale. He said that the Unmanned Systems Forces is an absolutely new structure which requires the developement of new security approaches. Meanwhile, Sukharevskyi, the commander, said that the launch a signal that the country is moving toward modernization of them.
“By creating the USF, we began to prepare for the war of the future, not for the war of the past,” he said.
Sukharevskyi mentioned that in the first five months of 2024, the state provided the Armed Forces of Ukraine with six times more drones than in the entire year of 2023.
Meanwhile, the country continues to rely on the Coalition of drones that consists of Latvia, Great Britain, Sweden, Estonia, Germany, Netherlands, Lithuania, Denmark, Canada, Australia.
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