The Defence Secretary will say the UK has supplied more than 85,000 military drones to Ukraine in the last six months, with £600 million invested this year to speed up drone delivery for Kyiv’s forces. The drones include many short-range FPV models used for reconnaissance and to support strikes.

Official briefings say that in September Russia launched about 5,500 one‑way attack drones into Ukraine, up from 4,100 in August. In October to date, more than 2,400 have been launched, with attacks focused on critical infrastructure such as gas storage and production facilities. As Ukraine moves to defend its energy resources ahead of winter, officials noted Russia is targeting those assets. Healey and Ukraine’s Denys Shmyhal last month signed a technology-sharing deal to jointly develop an interceptor drone to counter Russian aerial attacks. Battlefield data is being used to scale up production, with plans to send thousands of new models to Ukraine each month.