The Come Back Alive charitable foundation, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s UNITED24 initiative and one of Ukraine’s biggest banks Monobank, announced on Monday the launch of a campaign to raise UAH 230 million ($6,1 million) in funds to buy 10,000 kamikaze drones for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“10,000 FPV [First-Person View] drones will be purchased abroad and equipped with munition in Ukraine. This will be a plus for our army and a big minus for Russia,” the news release says.
According to a press release from Come Back Alive, it is a unique project, as for the first time in the history of Ukrainian charitable, the foundation, a fundraising platform, and a bank have joined forces to jointly influence the course of the war.
The procurement of the FPV kamikaze drones and their delivery to the troops will be carried out by the Come Back Alive Foundation.
FPV drones with munition are one of the most frequent requests from the military. An FPV drone is a drone with a “First-Person View” capability, when an external pilot, using special goggles, sees the drone’s first-person view. FPV drones are “modernized” with munition and turned into kamikaze drones, which, thanks in particular to the “first person view” option and the ability to reach high speed, accurately and effectively hit enemy targets.
The FPV drones will be equipped with thermobaric and high-explosive fragmentation munitions. The total price of the munition is over UAH 57 million, or almost 24% of the total project cost.