The German military will be armed with loitering munitions, or exploding drones, for the first time, two defense ministry sources said on Thursday, as Berlin tries to catch up with a technology that has shown its destructive power in Ukraine.
Both Russia and Ukraine have fielded such single-use drones, which cruise towards their target before plummeting at velocity and detonating on impact.
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But the procurement of armed drones has been controversial in Germany, with some politicians associating them with targeted extrajudicial killings by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
It took years of heated debate before parliament agreed in 2022 to enable a large drone such as the Israeli Heron TP, which flies at much higher altitudes, to carry arms.
However, military upgrades are more urgent now for Germany, amid the continuing war between Russia and Ukraine and doubts about the future of U.S. military protection.
Last month, parliament approved plans for a defence spending surge worth hundreds of billions of euros.
Contracts with two companies for a first batch of exploding drones will be signed in the coming days, the sources said, declining to name the companies. The army, air force and navy will test them in the following months.