September 27, 2025:
The United States has provided most of the military aid Ukraine needed in its war with Russia. American military advisers began working with Ukrainian forces in 2014, after Russia seized Crimea and portions of two adjacent provinces from Ukraine. The United States was not about to go to war with Russia over this, but that was always a possibility because Ukraine wanted to join NATO. Russia opposed this and believed that Ukraine should be part of Russia.
Between 2014 and early 2022, there was some low-level combat in the contested provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. That changed when Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. The invaders believed that the Ukrainians would not offer any effective resistance and would quickly surrender. Three and a half years later, the war is still ongoing, and the Russians are losing, with over a million dead, disabled, or missing troops. Economic sanctions imposed on Russia have, according to Russian leaders, done serious damage to their economy.
Meanwhile, Ukraine, benefiting from over $200 billion in Western military and economic aid, has seen its economy grow. At the same time, Ukraine invented a new form of warfare, using millions of cheap drones to cause most of the casualties and dominate the battlefield. Ukraine offered this technology to its NATO supporters, especially the United States.
The Americans quickly discovered that their defense industries were not prepared to manufacture cheap drones. This sounds absurd, but U.S. defense firms lean toward bigger and more expensive systems. At the moment, the Ukrainians are urging the Americans to overcome their self-imposed drone problems by seeking a manufacturer outside the defense sector to build drones. The Ukrainians pointed out that this was how they did it.
Early on, drones were being developed and built by hundreds of small groups using components imported from China. When Russia persuaded the Chinese to stop supplying the Ukrainians, the response was increased Ukrainian production of drone components and finding more firms in Europe willing and able to build drone components as well as completed drones. The Americans were also asked to help, and if the U.S. can contribute, it will simultaneously solve its own problems with building drones for Ukrainian and U.S. forces.
.