Why U.S. Drones Don’t Cut It for Ukraine
They’re too expensive to deploy at scale. By Readers Aug. 13, 2023 11:54 am ET A Ukrainian serviceman opeartes a DJI Mavic-3 commercial drone in Kherson, Ukraine, June 10. Photo: aleksey filippov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Seth’s Cropsey’s “Ukraine Needs American Drones” (op-ed, Aug. 7) aims in the right direction but misses the core problem. U.S. companies don’t mass produce the cheap, expendable drones Ukrainian troops need. Since these firms sell to governments and business customers, their advanced drones start at around $16,000. U.S. defense-tech firms have spent months testing their drones in Ukraine, but some now leave their drones in storage because they couldn’t perform perfectly in Ukraine’s harsh battlefield conditions. U.S. firms don’t have a mass-market consumer drone that costs only a few thousand dollars, wh
A Ukrainian serviceman opeartes a DJI Mavic-3 commercial drone in Kherson, Ukraine, June 10.
Photo: aleksey filippov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Seth’s Cropsey’s “Ukraine Needs American Drones” (op-ed, Aug. 7) aims in the right direction but misses the core problem. U.S. companies don’t mass produce the cheap, expendable drones Ukrainian troops need. Since these firms sell to governments and business customers, their advanced drones start at around $16,000.
U.S. defense-tech firms have spent months testing their drones in Ukraine, but some now leave their drones in storage because they couldn’t perform perfectly in Ukraine’s harsh battlefield conditions. U.S. firms don’t have a mass-market consumer drone that costs only a few thousand dollars, which is what Ukraine needs to replace DJI’s Mavic-3, the ubiquitous Chinese tool on the front line. The Pentagon or Commerce Department could encourage U.S. firms to enter the cheaper drone market, but they can’t buy drones that don’t exist at scale.
Austin Gray
Kyiv, Ukraine
Mr. Gray, formerly a U.S. Navy intelligence officer, works in product development at a drone factory.
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