What contribution did Prozorro make to the development of drones in 2023 and who was involved?
The Ukrainian authorities announced a million FPV drones and thousands of medium and long range ones for 2024. Drones can also be purchased at the local level: in particular, citizens demanded this more at protests under local councils in the fall. It is still impossible to say what volumes of such purchases in communities will be in 2024.
But we can already count orders for 2023.
The Dozorro Transparency International Ukraine project investigated who, for how much and what kind of drones bought on Prozorro last year.
More and more
In 2023, Prozorro completed the purchase of at least 27 thousand drones worth UAH 2.6 billion. Purchases continued for another 119 million UAH.
This is not the entire number of drones that were purchased for the military last year. The Ministry of Digital Transformation centrally buys drones using budget funds and charitable funds specifically intended for such needs and transfers them to military units. This data is not made public by law. At the same time, military units can also buy drones, and sometimes publish reports on such purchases on Prozorro - however, information about the quantity is mostly closed there. Therefore, there is no publicly available information about the number and cost of attack drones, only partially about dual-use drones, which include the well-known Mavics and Outels.
Accordingly, communities most often ordered drones from Prozorro. Also, local councils had the opportunity not to buy UAVs themselves, but to transfer money for them to military units: this practice exists, for example, in Chernigov, Lvov and Kyiv.
Overall, the number of drones purchased has been steadily increasing. If in January-February the amount of purchases did not exceed UAH 66 million, then in the spring the minimum for the month was UAH 122 million. In June, customers contracted drones for UAH 217 million. And in November, the amount of contracts for them reached almost half a billion.
In 2023, the amount of drone purchases on Prozorro was 12 times higher than in 2022 – UAH 2.6 billion and UAH 218 million, respectively. And the quantity is 43 times.
61% of the contract value comes from competitive procedures. There are also two types of direct purchases: basic and defense. The second concerns those direct contracts reported by customers who, in general, conduct procurement only for defense needs.
Maviki and FPV are the most popular
A significant part of the purchased drones are quadcopters from the Chinese manufacturer DJI. The most popular remain DJI Mavic 3 of various modifications, such as Fly More Combo, Enterprise, Thermal. Autel drones from the American company Autel Robotics Co., Ltd. are quite common. Of these, the most frequently purchased quadcopters were Autel EVO – Max 4T and 640T.
Domestic drones on Prozorro are also not uncommon. There are aircraft-type reconnaissance drones, large attack drones, and small kamikaze copters. Most often, customers bought:
“Aist-100”, created by the Ukrainian company DeViRo. It is used for reconnaissance. The cost of such a complex varies significantly depending on the configuration; the price of the UAV itself started from 1 million UAH.
“Valkyrie” (“VALK-1”), which is also used for reconnaissance and fire adjustment. Now it is produced by War Birds of Ukraine LLC.
The price for such a complex consisting of two drones and four ground stations was 800 thousand UAH.
“Furia” is a complex developed by NPP Atlon Avia LLC. “Fury” is designed for tactical air reconnaissance and artillery fire correction.
The price of the Fury depends on the configuration (the number of UAVs themselves and other components of the kit), but starts from UAH 3.3 million.
Impact drone “Kazhan E620”, equipped with a system for dropping ammunition of any type. It costs from 668 thousand UAH.
Pegasus Arms 25, suitable for dropping any ammunition up to a total weight of 20 kg. The cost of such a complex was 880 thousand UAH.
At least 35% of the total number of drones purchased are FPV drones. These are quadcopters controlled by an operator using a special headset (glasses). They can carry a payload, but FPV drones do not have an autopilot and fly without GPS.
Who bought the most
In 2023, 658 customers purchased drones from Prozorro. Three city councils ordered them for more than UAH 100 million: Dneprovsky, Krivoy Rog, Zhytomyr. Also in the top 10 customers were the city councils of Lviv, Khmelnitsky, Lutsk, Cherkassy, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil. Military units were not included in this list, because not all information about the number and cost of drones purchased by them is public.
If we look at the regions as a whole, in terms of procurement amounts the Dnepropetrovsk region holds the lead - UAH 638 million, the Kiev region - UAH 227 million and the Lviv region - UAH 216 million.
Dnipro City Council – 1928 drones for 329 million UAH
The purchase of drones in Dnepr was carried out by the KP “Info-Rada-Dnepr” and the KP “Dnipro Municipal Energy Service Company”. KP “Info-Rada-Dnepr” ordered DJI Mavic and DJI Matrice the most – there were 1082 of them in different variations. The company also purchased 90 Autel Evo, 25 Gray Widow 1 and 17 Kazhan UAVs in various configurations.
“Dneprovsk Municipal Energy Service Company” mainly bought FPV drones - there were 701 of them out of 714 of all ordered drones.
Krivoy Rog City Council – 733 drones for UAH 220 million
There were also large orders of DJI products in Krivoy Rog - a total of 603 drones. Among them are various models and configurations of DJI Matrice and DJI Mavic. Autel EVO drones took second place with 65 purchased.
In addition, 43 Pegasus, 16 “Aist” complexes of various configurations, 5 “Furies” and 1 “Koldun-T” complex were ordered in Krivoy Rog.
Zhytomyr City Council – 797 drones for 160 million UAH
The specific model is indicated only in the City Council procurement portion. For example, 100 DJI Mavic 3 Fly More Combos were ordered in July, October and November. DJI Mavic and drones from Autel were also purchased in other months of the year. Also in July, the executive committee of the City Council purchased two RZ-100 drones for UAH 1.65 million. In December, the city bought 10 Molfar v1.2 UAVs for 1 million UAH. There were also 17 VALK-1 (“Valkyrie”) complexes.
Lviv City Council – 1217 drones for 64 million UAH
The drones were purchased by the Administrative and Technical Department. In particular, the company purchased 500 FPV drones in November and December. The cost of one was 10.1 thousand UAH. In addition to them, there were also more than 110 Mavics, more than 80 Autel EVOs, at least one Valkyrie complex, and four MARA-2P complexes.
Khmelnitsky City Council – 1463 drones for 55 million UAH
The Executive Committee mainly purchased FPV drones – 1,305 for UAH 28 million. But there were other drones, in particular DJI products: various models of DJI Mavic and DJI Matrice.
And then there are customers who bought more cheap drones, most likely FPV. For example, the Ternopil City Council ordered 1,603 drones for UAH 45.4 million, the Chernobaevsky Village Council - 1,055 drones for UAH 23 million.
In 2023, drones began to be talked about much more than in the first year of the full-scale invasion. And thanks to data from Prozorro, we see that this is not just talk - the amount of drone purchases has been growing steadily, from tens of millions per month to half a billion. This also indicates that local authorities are responding to the request and are joining in support of defense.
In total, UAH 2.6 billion worth of drones were purchased from the budget over the year through Prozorro. And in fact this is a considerable amount. “Come back alive” spent 464 million UAH on purchases for aerial reconnaissance over the year. Sergei Pritula’s fund for drones as of October – UAH 472 million.
However, of course, no amount of money is enough when it comes to supporting the army during war. Therefore, we hope that cities will increase their spending on drones and other things necessary at the front in 2024, reconsidering their daily needs.
