Drone spending at Prozorro increased to UAH 15.4 billion in 2024

In 2024, the amount of drone procurement deals through the Prozorro system increased significantly, reaching UAH 15.4 billion. This is almost six times more than in the previous year, when deals worth UAH 2.6 billion were concluded. This was reported by TI Ukraine, a publishing house specializing in the analysis of public procurement.

The most popular among the purchased equipment remain various modifications of DJI Mavic drones. Their quadcopters make up a significant share in the total amount of deals, which amounted to at least UAH 10.7 billion last year, or 64% of the total amount of deals. Among other civilian drones, Autel ranks second in popularity, with deals worth almost UAH 600 million in 2024.

According to analytical data, the State Special Communications Service spent the most money on the purchase of drones, amounting to UAH 3.5 billion, which was the largest amount among all participants in the procurement procedures. The second place was taken by the Ministry of Defense, which concluded agreements for over UAH 3 billion, and the third place was taken by the Department of Defense Work of the Zaporizhzhia Regional State Administration with expenses for drones in the amount of UAH 1.3 billion.

The top 10 city councils that spent the most on the purchase of drones included 9 regional centers: Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Lutsk, Zhytomyr, Dnipro, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, and Kryvyi Rih. Together, they spent UAH 2.5 billion on the purchase of this equipment.

It is worth noting that the DOZORRO study includes only open contracts, information about which is available in the electronic public procurement system. Some of the deals may be non-public, such as those concluded for defense purposes. In October last year, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, announced the conclusion of deals for the purchase of 1.6 million unmanned aerial vehicles for a total amount of more than UAH 114 billion over 10 months.