The Defense Procurement Agency contracted 41,000 Chinese drones - prices mostly decreased

The state enterprise of the Ministry of Defense "Defense Procurement Agency" has concluded agreements for the supply of 41,000 Chinese drones with a total value of UAH 6.91 billion. These are day and night drones manufactured by DJI and Autel.

This is reported by "Nashi Groshi" citing data from the "Prozorro" system. The purchased equipment must be manufactured no earlier than 2024, and the warranty and service period will be 12 months.

The largest batch is 17.2 thousand DJI Matrice 4T kits with thermal imagers. They were contracted at UAH 174,950-179,999 per kit. For comparison, the average price of this model in contracts on "Prozorro" in 2026 was UAH 182,412, and the lowest recorded was UAH 147,230.

Another 12 thousand Autel Evo Max 4T kits with thermal imager and zoom camera are purchased at UAH 143,495-145,733. The average price of such drones in procurements through "Prozorro" was UAH 150,481, and the average market price was about UAH 156,480.

Also, the DPA contracted 6.2 thousand DJI Matrice 4E at UAH 144,397-146,100 per kit. For this model, the average price on "Prozorro" was UAH 143,375, and the average market was UAH 144,846.

Another 5.6 thousand Autel Evo Max 4N kits with night vision camera and thermal imager will cost UAH 215,930-216,880 per kit. The average price of such drones on "Prozorro" was higher - UAH 235,186, while the average market was about UAH 215,179.

According to the publication's calculations, compared to April contracts of the Defense Procurement Agency, prices for all four drone models decreased, which corresponds to the general market trend. The biggest drop was for DJI Matrice 4T - approximately 10%.

At the same time, direct comparison of procurement and retail prices is not always correct due to different configurations. In particular, Matrice kits for the DPA include gimbal protection and DJI Cellular Dongle 2 mobile module. For Autel, additionally two pairs of propellers and a screwdriver are provided.

Procurements are conducted through closed framework agreements. Because of this, information about winners and delivery dates is not disclosed. On "Prozorro", the models and configuration of the purchased drones are also hidden.

Based on: Nashi Groshi