Albania on Tuesday announced it has purchased Bayraktar TB2 armed drones, officially becoming the latest country to buy unmanned aerial vehicles that earned fame for their critical role in several conflicts.
Bayraktar TB2s became highly renowned for their success in Syria, Libya, Karabakh and lastly Ukraine, where the platforms proved to be instrumental in the country’s defense against armor and anti-aircraft systems in the first few weeks of the Russian invasion.
“We signed an export contract for the BayraktarTB2 armed UAV with Albania,” said its developer, Baykar, on Twitter.
The number of countries to which the battle-proven drone has been exported has risen to 27, according to the firm, including NATO member Poland, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. The company has also signed deals with five countries for exports of its much larger sibling Akıncı.
The three Bayraktar TB2s that Albania has purchased will be ready for action if the country’s national security is threatened but will be used in the meantime to help police, Prime Minister Edi Rama said.
“They will be ready for every occasion,” Rama said during a signing ceremony with representatives of Baykar in Tirana, adding that he hoped the drones would never have to be used in a war.
Neighboring Kosovo, which is going through an ethnic crisis, is also planning to purchase Bayraktar drones.
“We signed an export contract with Albania, a country we have walked alongside for centuries and share strong historical, cultural and humanitarian ties,” said Haluk Bayraktar, CEO of Baykar.
Rama did not say how much the government paid for the drones, when they would be delivered and whether Albania will seek to buy more of them.
Rama said the drones, which will be armed and ready for combat, will help authorities in a number of areas, including monitoring the Balkan country’s territory, locating cannabis plantations and tracking wildfires.
Some 30 people are expected to be trained to operate the drones. They will operate from the Kucova air base, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital, Tirana. The air base is being renovated to support NATO air supply operations, logistics support, air policing, training and exercises.
Albania, which joined NATO in 2009, has helicopters but no fighter jets. Its air force is made up of a few Cougar and other military helicopters after its old Russian and Chinese-made jets stopped flying in the late 1990s.
Deployment of the Bayraktar TB2 has been a major factor influencing conflicts from Syria to Karabakh and Ukraine, pushing Baykar into the global spotlight and transforming it into a major manufacturer and exporter.
The drone gained so much prominence with the public that Ukrainians composed a song about it and some allies launched unprecedented crowdfunded campaigns to buy more.
The platform is known for taking out some of the most advanced anti-aircraft systems, artillery systems and armored vehicles.
Bayraktar TB2 has a 12-meter (39-foot) wingspan and can soar to 25,000 feet before swooping in to destroy tanks and artillery with laser-guided armor-piercing bombs.
Baykar has manufactured more than 400 TB2 to date, according to the company. It is now aiming to further expand its production capacity, a target that it in part hopes to achieve with a plant in Ukraine. Baykar currently has the capacity to manufacture 200 Bayraktar TB2s a year, its CEO said earlier. It plans to raise this figure to 500.
