Here’s how to help solve Ukraine’s drone shortage problem

Excerpt

Drones and other unmanned systems are a “central driver” of the Russia-Ukraine war, Kyiv’s top general observed in an op-ed published this month. In terms of battlefield innovation, Ukraine’s “number one priority” is the “mastery of an entire arsenal of (relatively) cheap, modern and highly effective, unmanned vehicles and other technological means,” he wrote.

By leveraging their resources, technologies and production capacity, the U.S. and its allies can help Ukraine meet this challenge.

In addition to artillery shells, one of Ukraine’s most urgent battlefield needs is an enormous number of one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as “kamikaze drones.” First and foremost, this means first-person view — or “FPV” — drones, combining cheap commercially available quadcopters rigged with munitions. Both Russia and Ukraine widely employ FPVs as improvised loitering munitions used to attack vehicles and personnel at or near the front line. But while the Ukrainians adopted FPV drones first, Russia now has the edge thanks to its advantage in production capacity.

With Western-provided shells currently in short supply, Ukraine will need to lean even more heavily on FPVs as a partial replacement for artillery. The Ukrainians are making many thousands of FPV drones every month, but they’re still well short of Kyiv’s goal of 1 million per year. Although Ukraine has received some loitering munitions from the United States and other Western countries, they’re far more expensive and aren’t produced at anywhere near the sufficient scale.

John Hardie is deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Bradley Bowman serves as senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power.