KIEV, August 20. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian defense industry has developed a drone codenamed Dnieper 1, Ukrainian media said Wednesday.
Research and development was funded by businessmen who donated their money to the Homeland Defense Fund reporting to the administration of the Dnipropetrovsk region, run by oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi.
The media said ten Dnieper 1 drones had been dispatched to the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions where fierce combat operations against the self-defense forces of supporters of the country’s federalization have been raging over the past several months.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said earlier a tactical wing of unmanned aircraft had been set up within the ‘national guard’ structure. He said the drones would be used for reconnaissance.
In the meantime, eyewitnesses in Donetsk said the skies over the city were already filled with huge numbers of reconnaissance vehicles.
Drones were seen before dawn over the Mikhail Kalinin hospital, the largest clinic in the city, and over the Donbass Arena stadium.