The United States has invested heavily in the development of the new models of drones and the expansion of their production in Ukraine.

The New York Times reported on this.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that the support for Ukrainian drone production had begun in late 2022 after a series of successful offensive operations by the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

After the Zaporizhzhia operation in 2023, recognizing the growing role of drones in the Ukrainian military, the United States quickly increased its support for Ukraine’s drone industry.

In the fall of 2024, the Pentagon reportedly allocated $800 million to purchase drone components and finance production in Ukraine. Later, during Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s visit to Washington, President Biden announced an additional $1.5 billion.

However, in addition to financial assistance, the Biden administration has also been actively working to establish ties between American technology companies and Ukrainian drone manufacturers.

The publication’s sources spoke about the deployment of the specialists from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to support Ukraine’s drone program.

“I think our intelligence support has helped the Ukrainians defend themselves,” CIA Chief William Burns said on Thursday. “Not only in sharing intelligence, but also in supporting some of the systems that have been so effective.”

Drone production in Ukraine

In the absence of long-range weapons, such as long-range cruise missiles, the Ukrainian industry began to develop technologically simpler models of attack drones to strike strategic targets in the deep rear of the Russian Federation.

The first production models of full-fledged Beaver attack drones began operating in 2023, but the deep strike tactic began to develop a year later with the transfer of funding from volunteers to the state and the scaling up of production.

Last year was the largest in terms of the number of successfully attacked strategic targets and the number of drones used. According to the Ministry of Defence, the Ukrainian defense industry supplied more than 6,000 long-range drones to the Ukrainian Defense Forces in 12 months.

In total, the Ukrainian military has received more than 1.2 million drones. In particular, the Ukrainian Defense Forces received more than 40,000 reconnaissance drones, including more than 12,000 “night” drones. Along with them, another 5,000 reconnaissance UAVs, such as Shark, HOR, Furiia, etc. More than 30,000 bomber drones of various types were also delivered.