The Bayraktar drones from Turkey are an export hit and in great demand. The manufacturers are now making it clear once again that they do not want to supply drones to Moscow. After all, they support the “heroic struggle” of the Ukrainians.
The manufacturers of the Bayraktar drone do not want to supply drones to Russia. “No matter how much money they offer us, in this situation there is no question of giving them drones. At the moment, we fully support the Ukrainian side,” Haluk Bayraktar, the CEO of the Turkish company Baykar, told the BBC.
“Money is not a priority for us. Money and material resources have never been the goal in our business,” Haluk Bayraktar added. “Our friendship and cooperation with Ukraine has existed for many years.” They appreciated Ukraine’s “”heroic struggle,”” said the CEO, whom Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj had already awarded a state medal in 2020. “We share the pain of Ukrainians”. Nothing will darken cooperation with Ukraine, he said, “our position in this regard is clear.” His brother Selchuk Bayraktar, who criticized the Russian incursion as an “unjust and illegal war” on the BBC, sounded a similar note.
Powerful weapons in war
Even before the Russian invasion, Turkey sold several Bayraktar combat drones to Ukraine; twelve are said to have been delivered. So far, there is no information about deliveries during the war. What is clear, however, is that since the invasion on February 24, the Ukrainian army has repeatedly used Turkish combat drones in the fight against the Russians. At the beginning of the war, videos of Russian tanks presumably destroyed by these drones circulated on the Internet. The government in Kiev describes the drones as particularly powerful weapons.
So powerful, in fact, that drone fundraisers have since been held in several countries. At the beginning of June, people in Lithuania collected the money to buy a Bayraktar drone within a few days. Enthused by the campaign, the manufacturer Baykar even gave Lithuania the combat drone for free. A short time later, such donation initiatives were also launched in Poland, Norway and Canada. Recently, the Latvians have also been collecting money for a combat drone for Ukraine.
Moscow had also shown strong interest in the Bayraktar drones in recent months. According to CNN Türk, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin even suggested to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that they work together on Baykar’s drones. Haluk Bayraktar, however, had already made his position unmistakably clear to CNN International in mid-July: they had not supplied Russia with drones and would “never do so.” “We support Ukraine.”
