Vladimir Putin has announced a massive increase in spending on unmanned drones, Interfax reports, with 400 billion rubles ($12 billion) in funding planned before 2020.
Putin wants the entire structure of the drone system to be developed in Russia "including automated attack, reconnaissance and other systems," the Russia wire reports.
From the looks of it, Putin apparently doesn't want the US to be the preeminent power in unmanned warfare. There have been reports they have helped Venezuela develop their own reconnaissance drone program and are in negotiations with Israel to cooperate on a new unmanned machine.
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