The current team at the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine has revised the decision to transfer 70% of FPV drone procurement to the DOT-Chain Defence platform, Arsen Zhumadilov, director of the Defence Procurement Agency, said in an interview with LB.ua.
According to him, the 70% target was an initiative of the previous minister, announced at the end of last year.
“The current team at the ministry has reviewed this decision. Essentially, we continue to fund DOT-Chain deliveries for brigades at a volume corresponding to what was set at the beginning of this year, but not beyond that. In other words, centrally managed procurement still prevails,” he explained.
Thus, more than 50% of supplies remain centrally managed. However, the General Staff selects drones for operational needs from a ranking that includes systems ordered via DOT-Chain, Brave Market, and those with strong Mission Control performance indicators. This ranking is administered by the Ministry of Defence, he added.
“Some of what follows this centralized logic will now go into tenders. This will not affect what is delivered monthly via DOT-Chain Defence to each brigade. A fixed amount is allocated monthly for tenders. These will be announced for most UAV categories, but not all,” Zhumadilov noted.
The aim of these tenders, he said, is to reduce costs and, secondly, in some categories to give access to state orders for smaller manufacturers or those who previously did not receive orders from the General Staff.