It would seem that, during war, the flight of a new military drone to inspect the border is nothing out of the ordinary. But not this one. Last week, the first people’s drone, an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft crowd-funded by Ukrainians and assembled by volunteer information technology specialists, went on a mission in Donetsk Oblast.David Arakhamia, head of an IT company in Kyiv, said the drone cost $35,000, and the money was donated to a bank account advertised on the website www.narodniy.org.ua.

“We wanted to buy a ready-made drone, but in Israel it costs $165,000 and in the U.S. $120,000,” Arakhamia said. To save money, a group of activists found someone to make a frame and then ordered the Zhytomyr Military Institute to fill it up with all the necessary equipment.