US to provide Ukraine with $800 million for drone production, Zelensky says
US to provide Ukraine with $800 million for drone production, Zelensky says
"Every meeting with our partners involves discussions about the defense-industrial complex," Zelensky said in his evening address. "We need Ukraine to be able to defend its sovereignty and independence regardless of any political threats in the world."
I hate to sound cynical, but the U.S. military probably sees this as real-world lab for drone warfare. They are gonna watch what the Ukrainians cook up and how it works very closely, and I would not be surprised if Ukrainian innovations coincidentally turn up elsewhere. Or if they, like, slyly pass it to the Taiwanese military.
But if that gets Ukrainians money for drones? Good. EU countries should pitch in too.
I mean, yeah, but at this point I think that’s very much a happy accident secondary goal. We will TOTALLY get shitloads of incredibly good data out of this. But so will the Ukrainians. And more importantly, Russia is getting consistently weakened to the degree that it’s becoming strategic.
Oh 100% for sure they do. It would be silly to not take advantage of real world testing if they had the chance.
I'm willing to bet they gave the Ukrainians the basic idea of using drones in warfare, and they took it to another level by strapping RPGs and grenades to them. The US basically used them for reconnaissance, but not like this.
Aside from any small economic benefit provided -- my assumption is that there are no restrictions on how Ukraine uses said drones.
The US may not be onboard with US weapons being used, but may be fine with funding production of Ukrainian weapons that strike in Russia. Thus, this may have larger impact than just where production happens.
Ukraine is obviously capable, given recent successful long-range strikes, of producing long-range strike hardware that Russia hasn't been able to stop sufficiently to prevent attacks from getting through.
I don't know if there are any specific constraints on what types of drones these are being used to produce. But if not, I suppose that it may have strategic impact.
That's a nice amount. Maybe the Ukranians can also test that microwave anti drone weapon the US has.