The United States is giving Ukraine $800 million in support to manufacture long-range drones, so Kyiv can do more to counter Russian aggression with its own weapons.
“They’ve developed the capability to mass produce drones that are very, very effective and that can go impressive distances,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III told reporters Oct. 23 following a trip to Ukraine earlier this week. “So it makes sense to invest in that capability and their ability to continue to scale.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to the proliferation of drones across the battlefield, with both sides using quadcopter-style and first-person view (FPV) drones with increasing sophistication. Moscow has also employed Iranian-designed Shahed drones to pummel Ukrainian infrastructure. Ukraine, in turn, has developed drones that U.S. officials say can hold Russian targets at risk hundreds of kilometers beyond the front line.
“That’s a qualitative improvement that we’ve seen by the Ukrainians in the past year,” a senior defense official said.
The U.S. assistance serves two purposes. It strengthens Ukraine’s ability to carry out deep strikes against Russian targets, and it will also build up the country’s ability to make its own arms at a time when the West’s industrial base is strained by demand from Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel.
“[The Ukrainians] have such a vibrant and diverse drone industry that’s doing really, really exciting things, and they’re doing them for really cheap,” Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
The U.S. and its allies first came to Ukraine’s aid with donations of weapons—everything from replacements for Ukraine’s Soviet-era weapons to F-16 fighters. But the U.S. has readiness concerns about giving Ukraine certain types of weapons in short supply such as American-made missiles and drones.
“You have got to be very clear-minded about what kind of operational outcomes we think Ukraine is going to get out of these long-range drones because we’re dealing with our own very serious problems in the Indo-Pacific and we are running out of materiel to give Ukraine,” from U.S. stockpiles, Caitlin Lee of the RAND Corporation told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
While the U.S. has provided Ukraine with ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles, it has not allowed Kyiv to use them to strike targets inside Russia. But there are no similar restrictions on Ukraine’s use of drones, which are slow and carry a much smaller payload than an ATACMS but still represent an important military capability.
“This is where a classic counterair strategy of attacking the another’s air base would be useful, even if they don’t destroy that much,” Pettyjohn added. “If they can hold it at risk and disrupt operations for several days, that’s a real operational effect.”
Another advantage, Austin noted, is that the drones are far cheaper to make than a ballistic missile, meaning that Kyiv can field a larger number of them.
“We’ve seen them strike targets that are 400 kilometers beyond the border and even deeper with precision, and they can do that at a fraction of the cost of a ballistic missile,” Austin said.
U.S. allies also are trying to support Ukraine’s defense industry. Denmark, Canada, and the Netherlands are participating in a global fundraising campaign that seeks to raise $10 billion in 2024 for the production of Ukrainian weapons. The campaign is called “Manufacturing Freedom.”
“If they’re going to be able to sustain their efforts, gotta be able to afford it,” Austin said. “It makes sense for us to invest in what they’re doing. It works. It’s effective and it’s precise.”