Kurti: In addition to boots on the ground, our Bayraktar drone army also has eyes in the sky

The army and the budget dedicated to the modernization of the KSF have been the focus of the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, at the last meeting of the government in Pristina.

Speaking about the achievements in 2/3 of his governing mandate, Kurti emphasized the army, saying that now Kosovo is stronger than ever before.

To highlight the transformation, Kurti said that " in addition to boots on the ground, our army also has eyes in the sky through Bayraktar drones ".

" We have the army stronger than ever, we have allocated twice as much budget compared to what it had and we are increasing it every year. We added 1,852 new soldiers and we have planned another 600 for the next year. There is more weaponry because we have increased investments by 191%, almost three times ", declared Kurti.

Bayraktar TB-2 drones have been purchased from Turkey and Kosovar officers have been trained by Turkish ones to use them.

"Bayraktar TB2" was developed by Selcuk Bayrakar, who is chief technology officer at the Baykar defense company and in 2016 married the daughter of the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The drone can stay in the sky for up to 27 hours and can fly up to 150 kilometers from the base. The drone can equip four missiles that can destroy armored vehicles from several kilometers away. "Bayraktar TB2" is 6.50 meters long, 12 meters wide and weighs 420 kilograms.

Meanwhile, the statement of the head of the Kosovar executive comes only a few days after the presentation of the budget for the next year, where Kurti stated that out of 3.3 billion euros, 370 million are dedicated to the portfolios of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Interior.

" It will be the defense and security budget where we have allocated 370 million euros or 22% more than currently. 153 million euros for the Ministry of Defense and 216 million euros for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. To our army, to which we have increased the budget by more than two times since we came to government and the number of soldiers by more than 2/3, we will add 600 more soldiers in the next year. Our police, which has 850 new policemen during our government, next year will have another 500 recruits and 21.7 million euros for capital investments, or 9 million euros more than this year, Kurti said a week ago in the Assembly . (A2 Televizion)