Speaking later, von der Leyen said she thought it would be possible to disburse the first tranche of the €45bn funding planned for 2026 in this quarter, meaning by the end of June. The first payment, she indicated, would fund Ukraine’s domestic drone production – “drones from Ukraine for Ukraine”.
The EU is giving Ukraine another lifeline to fight on. But with whose men, though?
To maintain production of an overwhelming force of drones to kill invaders and knock out Russian infrastructure.
Ukraine has drone fighting to an art form. They took a Russian emplacement entirely with drones and ground robots last week.