One of the Latvian UAV manufacturer DK Unity’s Pastnieks UAVs, which have been sent to Ukraine through the Drone Coalition. (Janes/Tom Barton)

Türkiye and Belgium have applied to join the international Drone Coalition led by Latvia and the United Kingdom, Andris Sprūds, minister of defence of the Republic of Latvia announced at the Drone Summit 2025, held in Riga on 28 May.

“We are 20 members. 18 plus two members joining. Türkiye and Belgium have applied. The papers are being reviewed but I look forward to both joining,” Sprūds said.

The Drone Coalition is led by Latvia and the UK, with other members Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Ukraine.

Sprūds added that at least 100,000 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had been supplied to Ukraine through the coalition since it was created on 14 February 2024, but rather than those just being small one-way attack (OWA) UAVs, that the number includes higher-end systems and that in future quantity of supply is not all that is important.

Sprūds said that in 2024 drone coalition members made contributions of EUR2 billion (USD2.3 billion), with the Latvian Ministry of Defence (MoD) saying that coalition member states also committed to allocating EUR2.75 billion in 2025 to support Ukraine.

Three main tenders, using a competitive process, have focused on delivering first-person view (FPV) OWA UAVs, and more advanced FPV and interceptor UAVs, with the third in progress and aiming at tactical-level multirotor intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) UAVs for Ukrainian forces.

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