USAID delivers nine Skydio drones to Ukraine to document war crimes

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on July 27 announced the delivery of nine autonomous drones donated by Skydio, a leading U.S. drone manufacturer, to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office to document Russian war crimes.

The agency said this in a press release published on its website, according to Ukrinform.

"The Skydio 2+ drones have 4K cameras that will be used to take photo and video content to document war crimes," USAID said.

These will aid the Prosecutor General's Office to document the more than 115,000 instances of destroyed civilian infrastructure, and evidence of human rights abuses on frontline communities and liberated territories.

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At the same time, two USAID-supported Ukrainian human rights coalitions have documented more than 40,000 incidents of Russia's war crimes since February 24, 2022. USAID also participates in joint war crimes documentation visits with Ukraine’s Office of the Ombudsman for Human Rights.

USAID's facilitation of drones donated by Skydio is the latest partnership with the U.S. private sector to support Ukraine. USAID has delivered Starlink data terminals donated by SpaceX, as well as laptops and software for Ukraine's schoolchildren and teachers, donated by HP, Inc., JP.IK, and Microsoft. USAID also partners with the private sector to support Ukrainian grain production and export through the AGRI-Ukraine initiative launched in July 2022.