Up to 60% of FPV drones under government order are unusable or need to be recycled – Sternenko

Up to 60% of FPV drones that are ordered by the government are either unusable or require serious modification upon receipt, Serhiy Sternenko, the head of a large UAV charity foundation, said on social media.

"Once again: more than half of the 2 million FPVs from the state are unusable and are in warehouses. How much is that in money? Billions," he emphasized.

Serhiy Sternenko emphasized that there are two reasons for this situation: logistics for 1-6 months and the need formed by the General Staff – they directly submit to the Ministry of Defense the names of drones that need to be purchased.

"There is either enormous corruption here, or blind stupidity. Or both in one, I don't know. But we have to fix it later," he emphasized.

It was previously reported that the Defense Procurement Agency saved over UAH 500 million thanks to the new procedure for purchasing FPV drones. At the same time, some manufacturers have already made the first shipments of drones for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

As is known, the DPA announced the first tenders for the purchase of FPV drones according to tactical and technical characteristics in July 2025.