Drone wars
Here’s the latest news from the past week(ish) on the state of global drone warfare.
(Source: Politico, https://www.politico.eu/article/surviving-the-killzone-how-drones-erased-frontline-and-changed-war-in-ukraine/)
Ukraine’s Drone Kill Zone. Drones have erased classic trench lines in Ukraine, creating a roughly 20 kilometer deep kill zone of constant surveillance and strikes along the front.
New Tactics. Both sides now rely on swarms of reconnaissance and attack drones that push artillery and logistics farther back, drive Russia toward small infiltration groups, and make holding fixed positions extremely difficult.
Human Cost. The result is a nightmare for troops and medics, as rotations, resupply and casualty evacuation become deadly gambles with no clear doctrine yet for stopping the slow, grinding advances enabled by this new form of drone warfare.
Source: Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/drone-war-moving-too-fast-old-school-weapons-development-ceo-2025-11
Drone Race Outpaces Old Weapons Cycles. DroneShield’s US CEO says drones and counter-drone systems now evolve in weeks, making traditional multi year weapons development timelines unworkable.
Modular, Software First Defense. Militaries and industry are shifting to modular, software driven systems that can be quickly upgraded as drones increasingly threaten both military and civilian targets across Ukraine, Europe and the US.
Faster, Cheaper Arsenal Needed. NATO leaders and innovators warn that what worked last year may already be obsolete, pushing a turn away from a few exquisite systems toward adaptable counter drone capabilities that are developed and produced faster and at higher volume.
Source: Yahoo News / AFP, https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/nato-trials-anti-drone-defences-165811576.html
NATO Tests New Anti Drone Shield. Poland and Romania are fielding the US made Merops system near the Ukrainian border as part of NATO’s effort to shore up its eastern flank after Russian drones crossed into allied airspace.
Cheaper Killer For Shahed Drones. Backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Merops uses smart interceptors and AI to hunt enemy drones and is credited with destroying about 40 percent of Russia’s Shahed drones in Ukraine at roughly a fraction of their cost.
Gap Filler For Critical Sites. Limited numbers mean Merops will likely protect key targets such as bases, power stations and airports, serving as a stopgap until Europe builds broader anti drone defenses and Poland can eventually replace it with domestic systems.
Source: The War Zone / The Drive, https://www.twz.com/air/chinas-first-crewed-tiltrotor-aircraft-is-flying
China’s R6000 Tiltrotor Takes Flight. China’s United Aircraft has begun tethered hover testing of its large R6000 tiltrotor, whose V 280 style swiveling rotors and roughly 13,450 pound airframe are designed to cruise near 297 knots with a projected range of about 2,485 miles.
Civil Design With Clear Military Uses. Developed in crewed and uncrewed variants for cargo, VIP, medevac and firefighting roles, the R6000’s speed, range and payload could also support PLA logistics to remote outposts, operations around Taiwan and missions such as surveillance, electronic warfare, signal relay or even strike.
Part Of A Wider Tiltrotor Push. The R6000 is one of several Chinese tiltrotor projects now emerging, highlighting Beijing’s drive to field a family of tiltrotor aircraft that can serve both military and civilian markets.
Belgium Buys Blaze Interceptors. Belgium is purchasing Latvian Origin Robotics BLAZE interceptor drones as part of a €50 million anti-drone package after recent incursions disrupted Brussels and Liege airports and probed a base storing US nuclear weapons.
Targeting Suspected Russian Hybrid Threats. Belgian officials, who suspect Russian involvement despite Moscow’s denials, are deploying these AI guided kamikaze interceptors to strengthen protection of critical sites in a country that hosts NATO, the EU and Euroclear’s frozen Russian assets.
Part Of A Wider Anti Drone Build Up. Defense Minister Theo Francken plans an additional €500 million for long term radar and jamming capabilities while Belgium brings in French, German and UK teams, reflecting a broader European push to counter growing drone disruptions.
Source: Benzinga, https://www.benzinga.com/markets/small-cap/25/11/48920690/exclusive-draganfly-demos-new-7-hour-flight-drone-at-us-mexico-border
Draganfly Shows Off Border Outrider. Draganfly completed live demonstration missions of its NDAA compliant Outrider Border Drone with the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, flying long endurance sorties over complex terrain along the U.S. Mexico border to showcase surveillance, emergency response and apprehension support.
Seven Hour Flights And Heavy Payloads. The North American built platform offers up to a 100 pound payload, as much as 7 hours of continuous flight, advanced imaging, AI enabled sensing and secure real time communications that plug into Draganfly’s broader fleet, drawing strong interest from federal, state, local and military stakeholders.
Growing Customer Pipeline. Multiple agencies are now in procurement talks, and the showcase follows a second purchase order from a Fortune 50 telecom for Commander 3XL drones with tethered LEAP systems for disaster telecom support, even as DPRO shares traded down in recent premarket action.
Source: The War Zone / The Drive, https://www.twz.com/air/mq-28-ghost-bat-to-fire-aim-120-missile-in-first-live-weapons-test-next-month
Ghost Bat’s First Live AIM 120 Shot. Boeing’s MQ 28 Ghost Bat, developed with the Royal Australian Air Force, is on track next month for a tactically relevant Woomera test in which it will fire an AIM 120 AMRAAM at a real airborne target, marking a first live air to air weapons shot for a CCA type drone.
Modular CCA Platform Maturing. The highly modular MQ 28, already flying in Block 1 form with more capable Block 2 aircraft on order, can swap noses for sensors like IRST and has demonstrated multi ship operations under E 7 Wedgetail control as the program “hits its stride” toward an operational capability.
Global Interest From Navies And Air Forces. Beyond Australia, Boeing is positioning Ghost Bat for future USAF CCA increments, new US Navy carrier based concepts and export customers such as Poland and Middle Eastern air arms, pitching it as an uncrewed companion for jets like the F 15EX across air to air, air to ground and electronic warfare roles.
Source: RUSI, https://www.rusi.org/news-and-comment/in-the-news/west-poorly-equipped-future-drone-wars
NATO Behind In Mass Drone Era. A RUSI report warns that the West is badly underinvesting in the hundreds of thousands of drones needed for high intensity wars, even as unmanned systems now dominate the Russia Ukraine battlefield and account for roughly 70 percent of Russian casualties.
Dangerous Dependence On China. The study finds the UK and its NATO partners lack domestic drone production depth and remain heavily dependent on Chinese origin components like motors, controllers and thermal sensors, leaving them acutely exposed to supply disruptions as Beijing tightens controls and aligns more closely with Moscow.
Call For Industrial Mobilization. RUSI urges NATO governments to treat drones as a core resilience pillar alongside munitions and fuel, build European alliances to secure key materials and components, and pursue decisive industrial mobilization or risk both strategic vulnerability and being technologically outpaced in future drone dominated conflicts.
Source: The War Zone / The Drive, https://www.twz.com/air/f-22-pilot-controls-mq-20-drone-from-the-cockpit-in-mock-combat-mission
F 22 Commands MQ 20 In Mock Fight. An F 22 Raptor pilot recently directed a General Atomics MQ 20 Avenger through a mock combat mission over the Nevada Test and Training Range, using tablet based controls and new open architecture links to exercise real time crewed uncrewed teaming.
Open Systems For CCA Control. The demo tied L3Harris BANSHEE data links and Pantera software defined radios into the F 22’s GRACE compute module and pilot vehicle interface, showcasing a government owned, non proprietary control stack that can be reused across future Collaborative Combat Aircraft.
Raptor As First CCA Quarterback. With the F 22 slated to be the US Air Force’s first airborne CCA controller before control spreads to F 16, F 35, F 15E and F 15EX fleets, Avenger is serving as a surrogate to accelerate tactics and autonomy work for a future force that will rely heavily on teamed uncrewed jets to offset growing adversary mass and air defenses.
Source: Jalopnik, https://www.jalopnik.com/2026912/us-army-wants-one-million-drones-in-next-three-years/
SkyFoundry’s Million Drone Push. The U.S. Army is launching its SkyFoundry public private program to build one million small military drones over the next three years, then more than 500,000 a year after, to match the massed drone use seen in Ukraine and reduce reliance on foreign suppliers.
Fixing The Supply Chain Problem. With most commercial drones today built by Chinese makers like DJI, the Army wants to catalyze a domestic drone industrial base, treating drones as a high volume commodity weapon that must be produced cheaply and at scale inside the United States.
New Partners, New Tradeoffs. SkyFoundry is designed to work with commercially focused firms rather than traditional primes, signaling a shift in spending away from some legacy platforms like tanks and troop carriers as the Pentagon tries to retool its defense industry for the drone age.
Source: The Jerusalem Post / Defense & Tech, https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-874136
SpyX Factory In Morocco. Israeli firm BlueBird Aero Systems has opened a plant in Benslimane, Morocco to produce SpyX loitering munitions, marking the first local manufacture of this kind of advanced “suicide drone” technology in North Africa and including tech transfer and training for Moroccan technicians.
Boosting Rabat’s Defense Autonomy. The facility will build two hour endurance, 50 kilometer range SpyX drones with 2.5 kilogram warheads, supporting Morocco’s push to modernize its forces, grow a domestic defense industry, create jobs and potentially export loitering munitions to African and Middle Eastern markets.
Strategic Ties With Israel Deepen. Coming on top of recent Moroccan buys of Israeli systems like Barak 8, ATMOS, Elta radars and EXTRA rockets, the new plant underscores closer Rabat Jerusalem defense cooperation under the Abraham Accords and enhances Morocco’s regional deterrence with cost effective precision strike capabilities.
Source: The Telegraph via Yahoo News, https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/armoured-drone-saves-wounded-ukrainian-100000012.html
‘Coffin On Wheels’ Rescue. A MAUL armored ground drone crawled roughly 40 miles through a drone saturated kill zone to extract a wounded Ukrainian soldier who had survived 33 days behind Russian lines with a tourniquet on his shattered leg after six earlier rescue attempts failed.
Armored UGV Built For Medevac. Developed by Ukraine’s First Separate Medical Battalion and now produced by DevDroid, the internal combustion MAUL uses an armored capsule and airless metal wheels to survive mines and drone attacks, costs about 19,000 dollars per unit and can reach speeds up to 43 miles per hour.
Robots For A Drone Dominated Front. As near constant aerial surveillance makes traditional medical evacuations almost impossible within 20 to 30 kilometers of the front, President Zelensky has vowed to scale up ground robotic systems like MAUL to keep rescuing trapped soldiers in Ukraine’s expanding no man’s land.
Source: The War Zone / The Drive, https://www.twz.com/air/israeli-aim-9m-sidewinder-missile-seekers-modified-to-better-target-drones-report
Sidewinders Tuned For Shaheds. A Foreign Policy Research Institute report says Israel quietly modified the seekers on its AIM 9M Sidewinder missiles so they perform far better against small, slow, low flying one way attack drones like Iran’s Shahed 136.
Seeker Upgrades Still Secret. Details on whether the changes are hardware, software or both remain undisclosed and have not been shared even with the United States, underscoring how hard it is for legacy heat seekers to pick drones out of ground clutter compared to newer AIM 9X missiles.
Broader Counter Drone Lessons. The study highlights how difficult it was for U.S. and allied jets to find and kill Iranian drones during the April 2024 attack, and argues that adapting existing weapons such as AIM 9Ms and APKWS based FALCO rockets will be essential to meet the growing drone threat.