British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps insisted on Friday during a visit to Kyiv that Ukraine “must win the war” with Russia, and to do so its allies must step up their support, having announced the day before that Britain would provide the Ukrainian army with a new package. military assistance, which includes more than 10,000 strike and reconnaissance drones.

In a video message published on the X social network, the British minister says that he came to Kyiv to “sound the alarm in the democratic world” because “we have to make sure that Ukraine wins the war”, reports EFE agency, Agerpres.

“The UK is committed to doing more than ever with our biggest military aid package to date,” a British official said, referring to the 10,000 new drones.

“Every nation must now do the same and ensure the victory of freedom over tyranny,” he continued.

Britain will deliver “over 10,000 drones” to Ukraine’s military this year, including attack drones, Britain’s defense secretary announced Thursday, and the government in London has committed a further £125m to the effort, on top of the £200m budget. I promised before.

The package includes about a thousand disposable strike drones, as well as maritime reconnaissance and attack drones that can be used against ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but the bulk of the package will include FPV (first person view) drones. The latter are drones. controlled by the pilot, who sees in the helmet or on the computer screen an image of the ground over which the drone flies.

Both Ukrainians and Russians actively use drones

Both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries make extensive use of drones for reconnaissance, to adjust artillery fire, and to attack infantry and military equipment, including tanks, armored vehicles, and howitzers.

Ukrainian forces are also trying to use drones to compensate for the shortage of artillery ammunition they are facing. But to neutralize drones, the Russian army uses highly effective means of electronic warfare, and the Russian military industry has developed several types of attack and reconnaissance drones since the beginning of the war.

For example, last week Russia showed a previously unknown FPV drone called Piranha, with which it destroyed one of the American Abrams tanks supplied to Ukraine by the United States, another tank of the same type was then destroyed by the Vampire. .

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