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By Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans
In late October 2021 it was announced that Kyrgyzstan had placed an order for three Turkish Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) from Baykar Tech. [1] The news of the deal came as a surprise not only because Kyrgyzstan was previously not believed to have a requirement for UCAVs, but also because Kyrgyzstan possesses little in the way of an air force in the first place. In fact, the Kyrgyz Air Force only began to operationally deploy fixed-wing aircraft in 2018, and that because the two An-26 transport aircraft in question were donated by Russia. [2] On the 18th of December 2021 the much-anticipated TB2s entered service with the Kyrgyz State Border Guard Service. [3] The TB2s are the first aerial assets known to have entered service with the State Border Guard.
