A Turkish weapons manufacturing company announced that it will donate three new armed drones to Ukraine after a Ukrainian politician raised about $20 million in a crowdfunding campaign to buy the unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Baykar company said in a statement on its website that it would donate the Bayraktar TB2 drones to Ukraine’s war effort and return the money raised from both business leaders and ordinary citizens to the people of Ukraine. “We are touched by their solidarity and resolve in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges,” the company said in a statement. “Baykar will not accept payment for the TB2s and will send three UAVs free of charge to the Ukrainian war front. We ask that raised funds be remitted instead to the struggling people of Ukraine.”
Baykar is a private company and had sold drones to Ukraine despite Russian objections even before Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. Ukraine used them early in the conflict to strike Russian military convoys and sink Russian naval vessels.