Turkey to provide Ukraine with TB2s for free: Lithuania
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Turkey is not only selling UAVs to Ukraine; it is donating BT2 drones free of charge to Kiev in light of the war unfolding in the country.
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The homemade Turkish drone, Bayraktar TB2 drone
Turkey will provide Ukraine with its homemade drones for free, enabling Vilnius to buy ammunition for the drones, Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anasauskus said Thursday.
Calling the affair "unbelievable", Anasauskus stressed that the gathered money would allow his country to buy the needed munition for the Bayraktar TB2 drones. "[A]nd the rest of [the] money will also go for support of [Ukraine]," he said on Twitter.
It is UNBELIEVABLE but 🇹🇷 just agreed to give the Bayraktar that 🇱🇹gathered money for, ❗️FOR FREE❗️. It is amazing! For the gathered money we will buy the needed ammunition for the Bayraktar and the rest of money will also go for support of 🇺🇦. Thank you Türkiye! 🇹🇷🇱🇹🇺🇦
— Arvydas Anušauskas (@a_anusauskas) June 2, 2022
Baykar technology company CEO Haluk Bayraktar announced in January that his firm concluded its contracts to sell its Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles to 16 countries.
Last September, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, and the Turkish company signed a memorandum on the construction of a joint center for drone maintenance and modernization near the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
Five months later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that his country signed an agreement with Turkey to significantly expand the manufacturing of the Bayraktar unmanned combat aerial vehicles in Ukraine.
In March, Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Yavuz Selim Kiran said Ankara had not donated its TB2s to Ukraine as assistance but rather sold them to Kiev via a private company.
In the months leading up to the outbreak of the Ukraine war, Kiev was found to be using the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 UAVs in Donbass, which soured relations between Moscow and Ankara.
And despite the tensions over Turkey's sales of drones to Ukraine, Turkish news website Haberler reported in early May that Ukraine has received 12 Bayraktar TB2 drones made in Turkey and placed an order for another 24.
More than 300 - potentially 400 - Bayraktar TB2 and Siha drones have been produced in Turkey over the last eight years, with 96 of them shipped to foreign clients, according to the report.
The United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Salvador, Serbia, Slovakia, Uruguay, and Ecuador were listed as potential buyers by the news outlet.
Turkey’s stance on the war in Ukraine has been embroiled in controversy surrounding claims of neutrality, especially following drone deals.
However, Turkey is one of many countries supplying Ukraine with arms, with a long list of states spanning the United States, Germany, Lithuania, the United Kingdom, and France, prompting outrage from Moscow.
