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Turkish Bayraktar drone (2019)
Photo: Birol Bebek / AFP
Despite a ban in the embattled east of the country, Ukraine officially used a combat drone for the first time.
"With the aim of forcing the enemy to cease fire, a Bayraktar drone was used on the orders of the commander-in-chief," announced the armed forces in Kiev on late evening service.
They shared a video of the deployment on social media.
Pro-Russian separatists had previously fired heavy artillery at positions of the army near Hranitne in the Donetsk region, it said.
According to the army, one soldier was killed and another injured.
The largest Russian news agency, TASS, also reported the attack.
Government troops have been fighting separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions along the Russian border since 2014.
According to UN estimates, more than 13,000 people have been killed since then.
A 2015 peace plan is on hold.
A ceasefire agreement from September 2014 already banned the use of drones.
Drones as a Turkish export product
Ukraine has acquired at least six combat drones from the Turkish company Baykar Makina in recent years.
President Erdoğan's son-in-law Selcuk Bayraktar is the company's chief technology officer.
In addition to Turkey, which uses Baykar drones in the Kurdish areas, the unmanned weapons are also exported abroad.
For example to Syria, Libya and Iraq.
Kiev also wants to set up its own drone production with Ankara.
The Russian-backed insurgents accused government units of having advanced in the area.
Ukraine rejected this.
According to both sides, there were also exchanges of fire on other sections of the front line.
Observers fear that Ukraine is arming itself with the aim of military recapture of the breakaway territories along the lines of Azerbaijan.
A year ago, the country in the South Caucasus recaptured large parts of the Armenian-inhabited Nagorno-Karabakh region in a war that was mainly carried out with drones.
atb / dpa
