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At the end of June 2022, Ukrainians donated 600 million hryvnias (about $20 million) to Serhiy Prytula's charitable foundation for Bayraktar TB-2 drones. The manufacturer of the UAV, Baykar, said that it would not take the money, but would transfer three aircraft to Ukraine at its own expense. Now it has become known how the money of the "People's Bayraktar" project will be used.
Volunteer Serhiy Prytula said that with the money raised by Ukrainians, the charitable foundation bought full access for the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to one of the satellites of the ICEYE SAR constellation. This means that the Ukrainian military will be able to receive satellite images of critical areas with a high update rate for reconnaissance purposes.
In addition, ICEYE will provide the Ukrainian government with access to the database of its SAR satellite constellation for more than a year.
Additional details of the agreement will be published later. Serhiy Prytula specified that the agreement was the result of the joint work of the Foundation, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, as well as the Ukrainian entrepreneur and former owner of Firefly Aerospace Maxim Polyakov.
ICEYE owns the world's largest constellation of SAR satellites. Unlike traditional Earth observation satellites, small ICEYE radar satellites can provide high-resolution images of the Earth during the day, at night and through clouds. To date, ICEYE has successfully launched 21 spacecraft.
Sergiy Prytula has been helping the Ukrainian army since 2014. At the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, he launched one of the largest charitable foundations in Ukraine to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine. During the war, the Foundation raised more than 2 billion hryvnias ($53 million) in donations. It purchases drones, optics, vehicles, communications equipment and tactical medicine for the military on the front lines, as well as delivering humanitarian aid to areas hit by Russian attacks.
Sources: Sergei Prytula Foundation, ICEYE
