• A Ukrainian unit says its ground robot completed 93% of a 12-mile supply mission autonomously.
• The robot used AI navigation, cameras, and 3D mapping to navigate the route.
• The unit hopes to expand autonomous missions and reduce reliance on services like Starlink.

A Ukrainian military unit said on Wednesday that it successfully sent a ground robot on a 12-mile supply run, using AI to navigate for nearly the entirety of the mission.

The Lava Unmanned Systems Regiment of the 2nd Corps, or Khartiia Corps, of Ukraine's National Guard announced the completion of the autonomous logistics mission in a statement shared with Business Insider, calling it the "first of its kind under combat conditions."

The unit said that the robot completed 93% of its 20-kilometer trip on its own, delivering cargo and returning to its starting point autonomously, with an operator intervening for only 1.4 kilometers of the journey.

Before departure, a separate ground robot equipped with light detection and ranging technology, or LiDAR, mapped the route and terrain in 3D. Cameras on the supply bot detected obstacles while AI-powered navigation guided the robot.

"This mission has shown that autonomous ground systems are already capable of operating in real combat conditions," said Andrii Kopach, who serves as commander of the Lava Regiment's Unmanned Ground Systems Battalion.

"The biggest change is that the operator is no longer a driver but a dispatcher," he said. "Instead of controlling the vehicle every second, they monitor its movement and step in only when needed."

Kopach said that the unit's next ambitions are to enable a single operator to oversee multiple robots at once and expand autonomous missions to casualty evacuations. He added that more AI-powered ground robots would reduce dependence on "a constant control link," such as Starlink, a satellite internet service which recently saw major speed disruptions in Ukraine, negatively affecting front-line operations.

Ground robots have become an important tool for Ukraine, carrying out resupply, casualty evacuation, and assault missions. The Ukrainian military, and Western military leaders studying lessons from the war, hope that increased reliance on ground robots and aerial drones, as well as the increased integration of AI capabilities into these systems, can help reduce the risks to the troops who would otherwise perform those missions on increasingly dangerous battlefields.

• A shotgun-armed drone has joined the Blue UAS List of approved uncrewed systems.
• Skyborne Technologies said it built the drone to withstand a shotgun's recoil.
• The Blue UAS List helps the US military and other federal agencies identify vetted drones.

A drone armed with a shotgun has been added to the Pentagon's list of uncrewed systems approved for purchase by the US military and other federal agencies.

Shotguns are commonly seen as a last line of defense against uncrewed aerial systems. Now, US troops could find themselves using a drone armed with one instead.

Earlier this month, Skyborne Technologies' AI-enabled Cerberus MI was approved for the Blue UAS List. The drone is a small, man-portable UAS that the company says was specifically designed to absorb the recoil of attached weapons. The company says the aircraft weighs about 40 pounds, can fly for roughly 35 minutes when armed, and engage targets at a range of over 300 meters.

Instead of simply mounting a shotgun on a commercial, off-the-shelf drone, Skyborne purposefully designed and built the aircraft with the recoil of a CHAOS 12-gauge shotgun in mind.

In addition to the shotgun, Cerberus MI can also be equipped to carry a HAVOC 40mm low-velocity grenade launcher. An operator can send the drone into action, fire its weapons, and fly it back for reloading. According to Skyborne, that makes it a reusable alternative to one-way attack systems that are typically destroyed after striking a target.

The idea of arming drones with shotguns isn't new. Ukrainian defense company 3DTech, for example, developed a drone equipped with a six-barrel recoilless shotgun system to shoot down enemy drones. Other companies are pursuing similar technology, including Federal Ammunition, Mossberg, and Palladyne AI, which are collaborating on the SwarmShot project.

The Pentagon's Blue UAS program was established in 2020 to identify drones that meet US government standards, particularly cybersecurity and supply chain rules. Last year, the Defense Contract Management Agency launched an official website cataloging the models approved for use.

The DCMA said that the list would expedite the process of getting drones into troops' hands as the US Department of Defense and other federal agencies push to rapidly integrate uncrewed systems into operations. Drones, drone parts, and software are part of the program.

A major focus of the list is identifying drones that meet restrictions on Chinese-made components. According to the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, Chinese companies control 90% of the commercial drone market. US officials have raised concerns about Beijing's leverage over the market.

• The Army is working to cut delays between recruitment, training, and assignments.
• New scheduling tools aim to fill empty training seats and get soldiers into units faster.
• The Army also wants to consider family medical needs earlier in assignment decisions.

The US Army wants to streamline how it trains new soldiers and places them into roles, part of a larger push to cut bureaucratic delays that can leave recruits waiting months for training and create logjams down the line.

Service leaders want to cut the time soldiers spend waiting between recruitment, training, and assignments, while also ensuring specialties are consistently filled by personnel who are prepared for and interested in the jobs.

At the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC, earlier this month, leaders from Army Human Resources Command discussed how they're modernizing personnel management to get soldiers trained into the jobs where they're needed faster.

The data-driven approaches are aimed at connecting what have long been separate processes to better match soldiers to specific locations and jobs based on the Army's needs and scheduling.

Part of the challenge for the service is getting "hundreds of disparate systems" to talk to each other, said Lt. Gen. Charles Lombardo, who's overseeing the effort.

The Army is tackling that problem through a broader technology overhaul touching systems spanning from personnel management to battlefield operations. The Army has described its wider human-resources overhaul as an effort to replace fragmented, paper-based processes with a unified data environment. It says that the effort is intended to improve forecasting, resource management, and real-time personnel services.

For training, Army leaders want better scheduling with an approach they're calling People Supply Chain Management.

Rather than handling enlistment, basic training, and advanced training as separate events, the service is examining how to better coordinate these processes to reduce downtime and fill empty training seats.

The Army announced the initiative last year, saying it recruits, trains, and assigns tens of thousands of people annually across more than 200 specialties. Some of the Army's most in-demand technical specialties, such as military intelligence and air defense, are top of mind because they have more specialized recruiting and training requirements. Without synchronization, bottlenecks can leave recruits waiting months for training or leave too many soldiers in particular job fields.

With this approach, if two dates are available for advanced training, the system would route soldiers graduating from basic training to the class that best fits their schedule or redirect soldiers to fill seats that open up if someone can no longer attend.

It's still early days for the program, and it remains to be seen whether the new approach can meaningfully reduce wait times, fill more training seats, and get qualified soldiers into units faster.

The service also hopes overhauls will improve assignments for families with members requiring special medical care or specific childcare by matching them with bases that have the necessary services and providers.The aim is to account for those needs before assigning soldiers to duty stations, rather than after a job match has been made.

• Ukraine's ground robots are carrying grenade launchers into dangerous areas.
• The robots bring short-range firepower closer to Russian troops without exposing Ukrainian soldiers.
• A brigade said operators tens of kilometers away used armed robots to pulverize Russian positions.

Ukraine is mounting grenade launchers on ground robots, allowing its forces to bring useful firepower closer to Russian troops without sending in soldiers to pull the trigger.

Grenades have long been important in Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion, particularly in close-quarters trench combat, but the battlefield is changing.

Troops increasingly fight in smaller force concentrations from scattered defensive positions rather than heavily manned continuous trench networks. Meanwhile, the growing "kill zone, which is swarming with drones, makes it harder for troops to approach these front-line positions. While infantry remains critically important, drones and robots are bridging the gap and taking over more and more missions, from logistics to medevac to assault.

Defense manufacturers told Business Insider that grenade launchers are increasingly being mounted on uncrewed ground vehicles, or UGVs, allowing soldiers to strike Russian positions from a safer distance.

Oleg Fedoryshyn, the director of R&D for the Ukrainian robotic and defense company DevDroid, told Business Insider that grenade launchers are useful because soldiers "don't need to see the enemy to hit him."

A soldier in hiding is easier to hit with a grenade launcher than, say, a machine gun, which is a line-of-sight weapon.

Now, soldiers can mount them on ground robots so that they don't have to put themselves in harm's way. A soldier-carried grenade launcher might have a range of a few hundred meters, but using a robot, an operator can be tens of kilometers away.

DevDroid's TW-40 ground robotic system has a range of 70 kilometers on paved roads and up to 50 kilometers off-road, making it effective in the kill zone. And the mounted grenade launcher has a reach of 1.5 kilometers.

Ukraine has been using soldier-carried and truck-mounted grenade launchers since before Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022. The robots deliver similar firepower without risking human lives.

Ukraine's Third Army Corps, for example, said in September that it used grenade launchers on robots to "dismantle enemy positions" in its Operation Vivaldi, characterizing it as "a new tactic."

"Equipped with dual Bullspike grenade launchers, the UGVs attacked Russian positions before detonating directly inside the enemy's shelters. The occupiers believed they were under assault by an entire assault squad; in reality, they were being pulverized by the Third Assault Brigade's robots," the brigade wrote on Telegram.

It said that robots were able to strike, put psychological pressure on Russian forces, and clear the position "all without putting our infantry at risk."

"This is a tactic never before seen in the history of warfare. The robots were controlled by operators from a secure shelter located tens of kilometers away from the front line."

Robots armed with grenade launchers are another example of how this war is blending elements of old warfare with new, advanced technologies. In this war, it's not uncommon to see drones dropping grenades or electronic warfare sharing the battlefield with artillery.

In addition to grenade launchers, robots can also fire other weapons, such as RPGs and American-made M2 Browning machine guns.

DevDroid's goal with its systems is "to change all roles that we can change to save people's lives," Fedoryshyn said.

That goal is shared by Ukraine's soldiers, defense industry, and leadership. Oleksandr Yabchanka, the head of the robotic systems for Ukraine's Da Vinci Wolves Battalion, told Business Insider that Ukraine is constantly working to increase the distance between troops and the fighting.

"Our philosophy is, above all, to preserve our personnel," he explained. "We strive to position our fighters as far as possible from the line of contact and the zones of highest risk — the so-called 'kill zones.'"

Other manufacturers say they're seeing a shift in how soldiers use armed robots in combat.

Defense firm Frontline Robotics makes the Buria autonomous remote weapon station, which allows soldiers to fire grenade launchers and other weapons remotely. Early last year, Ukrainian forces were hiding them in prepared locations to stop Russian advances.

"But right now, everything has changed," Mykyta Rozhkov, chief business development officer, told Business Insider, pointing to the growing drone saturation on the battlefield.

Now, it's being mounted on UGVs, creating small tanks that can advance toward Russian positions without exposing troops.

DevDroid's Fedoryshyn said robots armed with grenade launchers are most effective when paired with robots carrying machine guns and aerial drones that can spot targets and direct fire.

Robots can be used to transport gear, evacuate the wounded, blow up enemy positions, lay mines, and fire various types of weaponry. Their use has increased dramatically. Ukraine's defense ministry said in June that it had contracted over 22,000 uncrewed ground vehicles so far in 2026, nearly twice as many as all of the previous year.

The Da Vinci Wolves' Yabchanka said that he sees that "many units have begun employing UGVs. This usage has already become widespread. Ground-based robotic systems are becoming an integral part of combat operations for most units deployed along the line of contact."

As UGV use grows, Rozhkov said that Frontline Robotics' goal is to "provide different robotic solutions to get people outside the danger zone. So just to keep the line with the robots."

• Ukraine downed about 74% of Russia's turbojet Shaheds while Starshield was throttled, ISW says.
• That's about 3 percentage points lower than its typical interception rate of about 77%, analysts said.
• Much of Ukraine's air defense against turbojet Shaheds now relies on fighter jets like the F-16.

Ukrainian data shows its air defenses largely held up against one of Russia's most prominent new threats despite a 10-day Starshield slowdown.

Though high-speed interceptor drones were hindered by the reported throttling, Kyiv's forces managed to intercept 74% of Russian jet-powered Shaheds from October 14 to 24, compared with a typical rate of 77%, according to analysts at the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War.

The organization bases its analyses on interception data released by Ukraine's air force, which said Russia had launched hundreds of the turbojet attack drones over the 10-day period.

The drop of three percentage points, or roughly 3.8%, translates to a "still relatively high interception rate" but doesn't mean Ukraine can rest easy, the ISW analysts wrote.

Many interceptons were owed to Ukrainian fighter jets countering Russian jet Shaheds with air-to-air missiles or guns.

For months, fighter aircraft have been Ukraine's primary and most successful air defense so far against jet Shaheds — an assessment that Ukrainian air force spokesperson Col. Yuriy Ihnat repeated to local media on Monday after Starshield services returned to normal.

"We are counting on the aviation component," he told RBC Ukraine, referring to helicopters and fighter jets.

One of Ukraine's main aircraft in this fight is the F-16 Fighting Falcon, which Ihnat said in April could shoot down 10 Russian Shaheds each in a single night. The F-16 carries the M61A1 Vulcan, a six-barrel, Gatling-style rotary cannon that fires 20mm rounds.

Kyiv requisitioned more than 50,000 of these rounds from Denmark last week in a scramble to bolster its air defenses while Starshield, the military version of Starlink that its interceptor drones rely on, was limited by a speed cap. That many rounds is enough for roughly 100 sorties.

The F-16 pillar can't last forever

But ISW analysts wrote that the F-16 strategy poses a few complications for Ukraine. Using its gun to shoot down jet Shaheds, for example, "requires a high pilot skill level and increases the risk to the airframe and pilot," the wrote.

The practice also increases maintenance demands for Ukraine's already-strained fighter jets and distracts them from other missions they could be needed for, the analysts added.

"Supplementing the Ukrainian air defense umbrella with interceptor drones is Ukraine's best chance at developing a robust air defense umbrella capable of sustaining high interception rates of Russian jet-powered drones over the long term," the analysts wrote.

Indeed, before Russia began surging launches of jet-powered drones, Ukraine had reported much higher interception rates of over 90% against propeller Shaheds in some months.

These had been largely boosted by Ukraine's mass adoption of interceptor drones, or small drones that cost just a fraction of traditional interceptor missiles.

But Russia's increased use of turbojets on its attack drones, the more advanced of which can fly at speeds of up to 370 mph, meant Ukraine has to radically evolve its designs to keep up. While it now has several types of drones capable of catching and destroying jet-powered Shaheds, the new interceptor effort as a whole is still in early stages.

Many of these new interceptors became ineffective during the 10-day slowdown of Starshield, which Ukraine said stopped working when a drone flew faster than 100 mph.

The reason for the connectivity problems is still unclear. They emerged as President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk both openly criticized Ukraine for strikes on Russian energy infrastructure as the White House sought to lower gas prices.

Trump and Musk have separately said they were not responsible for the slowdown to Starshield, which is owned and operated by the US government.

Musk, while maintaining that the US controls Starshield, later also accused Ukrainian forces of breaching civilian network Starlink's terms of service by using it for drone strikes.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Starshield services were restored.

Meanwhile, some Ukrainians are already bracing for a new threat from Russia through cheap, mass-producible cruise missiles. One such missile, the Filin, has been listed by Russia as capable of flying as fast as 500 mph.

• China, India, and the US have the largest active armed forces in the world.
• The International Institute for Strategic Studies compiled data about the world's militaries.
• The world's top armies spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defense each year.

The US military may lead the world in budget size and in the ambitions of its warfare technology, but there is one measure by which it is outsized by other nations.

Using data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies' 2026 Military Balance report, Business Insider ranked the top 25 countries by the size of their active armed forces during 2025 and listed their defense budgets that same year.

Active-duty force size is a tally of a country's uniformed troops: airmen, soldiers, sailors, special operators, and Marines.

Armies, in particular, depend on size to gain and occupy ground during armed conflicts.

Militaries can also be a tool of domestic repression. North Korea, for example, is one of the world's most repressive states, led by a dictator who has repeatedly threatened neighboring South Korea — and it also has one of the world's largest militaries.

The number of active-duty military personnel is far from the only factor that matters when comparing military power between countries, but it reflects latent power.

"Numbers have value, but there's a lot more to military capability," Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC-based foreign policy and national security think tank, told Business Insider.

IISS, a London-headquartered think tank, counts active armed forces, reservists, and paramilitaries as separate categories in its analysis, showing a fuller picture of each nation's manpower.

Some countries have significantly more reservists than others — Vietnam has the largest number in the world, estimated at 5 million — but the quality and longevity of their expertise can vary between systems.

"When you look at some countries' reserve numbers, you're often looking at people who haven't trained in 10 or 20 years," Cancian said. "It gives you a big number, but their military value is questionable."

Even when accounting for all of a military's manpower, personnel is only one of the factors that can qualify a nation's military strength, which also includes equipment and readiness.

There's also the role of technologies in global warfare, the size and sophistication of air forces and naval fleets, amphibious capabilities for landing assault forces, command-and-control systems, and nuclear forces, all of which shape military power.

Still, comparing global manpower offers insight into how countries prioritize military power.

See how the world's largest militaries stack up in terms of active troop numbers.

25. Iraq

Active armed forces: 193,000

Defense budget: $12.7 billion

24. Morocco

Active armed forces: 196,000

Defense budget: $7.5 billion

23. France

Active armed forces: 204,000

Defense budget: $70 billion

22. Japan

Active armed forces: 247,000

Defense budget: $58.9 billion

21. Saudi Arabia

Active armed forces: 257,000

Defense budget: $72.5 billion

20. Sri Lanka

Active armed forces: 260,000

Defense budget: $1.4 billion

19. Colombia

Active armed forces: 285,000

Defense budget: $8.3 billion

18. Mexico

Active armed forces: 301,000

Defense budget: $11.4 billion

17. Eritrea

Active armed forces: 302,000

Defense budget: Not reported

16. Turkey

Active armed forces: 355,000

Defense budget: $21.5 billion

15. Thailand

Active armed forces: 361,000

Defense budget: $5.8 billion

14. Brazil

Active armed forces: 375,000

Defense budget: $24.2 billion

13. Indonesia

Active armed forces: 434,000

Defense budget: $15 billion

12. Egypt

Active armed forces: 439,000

Defense budget: $2.3 billion

11. Vietnam

Active armed forces: 450,000

Defense budget: $8.4 billion

10. South Korea

Active armed forces: 450,000

Defense budget: $43.8 billion

9. Ethiopia

Active armed forces: 503,000

Defense budget: $484 million

8. Iran

Active armed forces: 610,000

Defense budget: $6.1 billion

7. Pakistan

Active armed forces: 660,000

Defense budget: $10 billion

6. Ukraine

Active armed forces: 677,000

Defense budget: $44.4 billion

5. Russia

Active armed forces: 1,264,000

Defense budget: $161.2 billion

4. North Korea

Active armed forces: 1,280,000

Defense budget: Not reported

3. United States

Active armed forces: 1,340,000

Defense budget: $921 billion

2. India

Active armed forces: 1,501,000

Defense budget: $78.3 billion

1. China

Active armed forces: 2,035,000

Defense budget: $251.3 billion

• Ukraine has been waiting nearly a month for the US to sign off on crucial missile interceptors, its president says.
• Kyiv said it is specifically waiting for the Pentagon to approve Patriot and NASAMS missiles.
• Ukraine has repeatedly faced low stockpiles of interceptors as it defends against Russian missiles.

Kyiv has been waiting nearly a month for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on crucial missile interceptors, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine has been waiting on approval to procure interceptors for its Patriot and NASAMS systems. The former is the country's most reliable defense against Russian ballistic missiles.

The Ukrainian president said that he instructed his team "to raise this with the American side once again. Conversations with other countries are also ongoing."

Most of the interceptors for Ukraine's air defense systems, including its Patriot batteries, are supplied through NATO's Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative, in which allies and partners buy weapons from the US and then transfer them to Kyiv.

It is unclear how many interceptors have been held up, or why Hegseth had not signed off on their transfer.

A senior Pentagon official told Business Insider "there has been no change" to department policy "regarding intelligence sharing or any capabilities we are enabling Europeans to provide to Ukraine."

The PURL initiative "continues unaltered," the official added.

Ukraine has faced repeated interceptor shortages, making it difficult to effectively defend against worsening Russian ballistic missile attacks, which, alongside armed jet-powered drones, have hammered Kyiv in a series of deadly bombardments.

The American-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system is a key piece of Kyiv's defensive umbrella. Ukrainian officials have urged the US and European allies to send more interceptors — PAC-2 and PAC-3 models in particular. Global munitions stockpiles, however, are under increased strain.

"We are working on several tracks — with the United States, Europe, and other partners that have stocks of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles," Zelenskyy said Monday in a social media post.

The Iran war has put tremendous stress on munition stockpiles. Col. Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, said on Monday that the Patriot interceptors fired by the US and its Middle East allies during the Iran war could have supported Kyiv's defenses for several years.

The NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) — a joint US-Norwegian project — is another important element of Ukraine's air defense network. It is not designed to engage ballistic missiles like the Patriot, but rather short- and medium-range targets such as aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones.

Zelenskyy's comment comes amid broader tensions between Ukraine and the US, which have escalated in recent weeks.

The Trump administration has publicly denounced Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russian energy facilities, with Washington blaming Kyiv for high oil and diesel prices. Industry experts, however, have identified the Iran war as a major source of disruption in global markets.

In October, Ukrainian officials reported multiple instances where Kyiv did not receive any advance warning of Russian ballistic missile launches from international partners through usual channels, leaving it little to no time to detect them before impact. The apparent suspension of intelligence sharing was lifted after a few days.

Ukraine also experienced a sudden disruption of its Starshield services, the military-grade version of Starlink, earlier this month, with speed caps affecting drone operations, logistics, and communication, said sources in Kyiv's defense ministry.

On Saturday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said that monitoring systems had recorded speed recovery for Starshield and Starlink, SpaceX's commercial satellite internet service.

The incident has raised alarms among Ukrainian officials. Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO, accused Kyiv of breaching Starlink's terms of service by using the civilian service for drone strikes and said last weekend that this ultimately led to the disruption. Some of Kyiv's top drone advisors have pushed back on that argument.

• Elon Musk has accused Ukrainian forces of using commercial Starlink in drone strikes.
• But two Ukrainian drone figures say the claim is impossible because of limits imposed on the terminals.
• It comes after Ukraine was hit by a 10-day slowdown on Starshield, the military version of Starlink.

Ukraine said its access to Starshield was restored this weekend, but Elon Musk isn't finished with Kyiv yet.

In an X post on Sunday, Musk accused Ukrainian forces of breaching Starlink's terms of service by using the civilian platform in drone attacks.

"Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week," wrote the SpaceX owner.

"Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be," he added.

Musk made it clear he was talking about the commercial platform and not Starshield, the military version of the satellite communications service owned and controlled by the US government.

"Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately. This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact," Musk added.

Ukrainian drone advisors hit back

Two prominent Ukrainian drone figures, however, disputed Musk's statement, saying that it was technically impossible for any of Kyiv's troops to have independently used Starlink in drone strikes.

"As someone who was inside the process at the Ministry of Defense, I can say for sure that this is not true," wrote Serhii Sternenko, a former advisor for drones to Ukraine's defense ministry, on his Telegram channel.

"It is very strange that Elon Musk does not know about the restrictions on Starlink operation in Ukraine," wrote Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, another former advisor.

Both worked in the ministry in early 2026, when it negotiated with SpaceX to prevent Russia from using black-market Starlink terminals in the war. SpaceX agreed in February to block Starlink over Ukraine and Russia, allowing access only to whitelisted Ukrainian terminals.

Sternenko said that Ukrainian civilians and troops could register their terminals on the whitelist, but that these would only work while subject to a speed requirement.

For one to connect while moving, it would have to be put on a special list that uses Starshield instead, he said.

"That is, it was technically impossible to use civilian Starlink to perform missions on drones. All drone missions that required satellite communication could only be carried out using Starshield," Sternenko added.

Beskrestnov said the Ukrainian Starlink terminals were subject to a speed limit of 90 kmph, or about 55 mph. The civilian service is also completely cut off over Russia, he added.

"Thus, we physically cannot use commercial Starlink for deep strikes and middle strikes," Beskrestnov wrote.

Starshield vs Starlink

Tactical drones operating on the Ukrainian battlefield at speeds below 55 mph, such as first-person-view attack drones, typically use radio-frequency signals rather than satellite communication to maintain contact with an operator. These are also often too small and lack enough onboard power to reliably carry even a Starlink Mini terminal.

What Ukraine usually uses satellite internet for — hence its reliance on Starshield — is mid-range and deep strikes on Russia's rear or Russian territory, with larger, more powerful drones that fly much faster.

Kyiv also relies on satellite communications for its small interceptor drones, which fly at up to 265 mph to catch incoming attack drones.

Musk followed up on his Sunday X post with a screenshot of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy writing on social media in mid-October that Kyiv's forces "also use Starlink for mid-range strikes" against Russian targets.

However, Zelenskyy's post was describing Ukraine's recent troubles with Starshield, and he repeatedly used the term "Starlink" to refer broadly to the military satellite service instead.

Musk and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Earlier this month, Ukraine raised the alarm that its access to Starshield was being throttled at high speeds, reducing its ability to conduct deeper strikes and to control interceptor drones.

The crisis lasted 10 days and came as President Donald Trump and Musk openly criticized Ukraine for targeting Russian oil facilities at a time when the White House was trying to ease fuel prices.

The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed US officials and sources, that Musk had personally ordered the speed cap. Musk and Trump have separately said they were not responsible for the slowdown.

On Saturday, Zelenskyy said Starshield services were running normally again.

• The UK has issued a three-day essentials checklist it hopes its people will prepare at home.
• Top leaders say they want to bolster national resilience amid fears of the world growing more dangerous.
• The list includes items such as 9 liters of bottled water per person and charged power banks.

The UK is telling families to prepare three days' worth of food, water, and essentials amid concern that natural disasters, armed conflict, and other emergencies are becoming more frequent.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham's office launched the "Be Ready" campaign last week, urging British people to arrange household stockpiles including the following items:

• Three days of non-perishable food, such as dried fruit or tinned meat
• Nine liters of bottled water, or about 2.4 gallons, per person
• Hygiene and bathroom products, including wet wipes and hand sanitizer
• Warm clothing, sleeping bags, and blankets
• Light sources, such as flashlights with batteries
• A charged power bank
• An FM radio
• Cash and cards, copies of identification documents, and important information such as a note of personal medical dosages
• A first aid kit and other essential medical supplies
• Ready-made baby formula and diapers
• Pet food and bottled water

The idea is to give households the ability to hold out for three days while cut off from supplies or payment systems.

Burnham said the campaign was started as "unexpected events seem to be becoming more and more common," but urged people not to panic.

"It's about just taking sensible measures to have enough in the house to tide you over should there be a difficult situation," he told local media on Friday.

The campaign encourages people to build their stockpiles gradually, for example by adding some items to regular shopping trips, and to check them every six months to replace any that have expired.

It comes as government agencies and companies around the world temporarily shut down their websites last week after a major security flaw was found in an open-source programming language that powers about 70% of the internet.

"We're going to find these sorts of things happening more and more," said the UK's defense minister, Wes Streeting, on Friday. "And it's not just from foreign states engaging in espionage or sabotage. It's also organized criminals."

About 400,000 British homes also lost power at some point over the weekend as two back-to-back storms battered northern Europe.

But UK officials have also increasingly warned about the need to deter the threat of war in Europe, and are hoping to raise their country's national resilience in the face of such a possibility.

"Our adversaries' willingness to harm us is not new. What has changed is their capacity. By 2030, their force strength and war economy could put them in a position to attack," Streeting told The Telegraph on Sunday.

The defense minister added that the UK had 1,000 days left to prepare itself for war.

If you're based in the UK and have a reaction to share about the UK stockpiling notice, email our reporter: ghennessy@businessinsider.com.

• A Ukrainian drone maker was surprised by how much explosive weight soldiers loaded onto one of its drones.
• A drone's payload is limited by the weight of its battery, camera, and other equipment.
• Drone makers push technical limits, but Ukrainian soldiers often go even further.

A major drone maker said Ukrainian soldiers surprised it by packing one of its drones with more explosives than the company ever thought it could carry.

When loading up an attack drone with explosives, combat units are limited by how much weight it can carry and still fly. Batteries, cameras, and other essential equipment also take up some of that capacity. That doesn't stop soldiers from pushing the equipment to its limit.

"One of the most surprising videos I've seen recently is that one of the units has managed to put the huge explosive part on our drone," Oleg, an executive at TechEx, told Business Insider.

The drone was carrying "something like five or seven kilos, and they managed to fly into the building and put it completely to the ground with one single FPV."

"I was like, 'How do you literally put this amount of explosives on one single FPV?' But it managed to carry this on and did the mission," the TechEx exec said, speaking on the condition that he be identified only by his first name for security reasons.

TechEx lists a maximum payload of two kilograms for three of its NATO-codified fiber-optic drones: the Stalker XO-10 China-Free, Stalker XO-15 MAX PRO, and Stalker XO-13.

Weight is a major constraint for Ukraine's drone makers, who are constantly trying to accommodate more firepower and bigger batteries, as well as heavier weapons and cameras. It's a constant trade-off, with every gram mattering.

Soldiers fighting for survival often push beyond advertised limits. Last year, a sergeant major in a heavy bomber company told Army Inform, Ukraine's defense ministry media, that while a Bat drone can fly up 8 kilometers and carry up to 12 kilograms, his unit pushed it to fly a little farther and carry a little more.

Weight is an important consideration for TechEx drone development. The company advertises its "ultralight fiber optic reel" as one of its product advantages. Last year, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense characterized TechEx's Stalker series as having a "record-low spool weight among Ukrainian fiber-optic drones."

The struggle with weight is particularly acute for fiber-optic drones because, in addition to gear like batteries, they have to carry the spool containing the fiber-optic cable that trails behind them, maintaining a connection with the drone operator. The cable makes them resistant to enemy jamming, but the added weight limits how many explosives they can carry. The cable spool can weigh several kilograms on some drones.

Olha, a TechEx representative, told Business Insider that the company developed its own technology to reduce spool weight, making "tiny tweaks and changes" to how the spool is assembled and the fiber is wound into it. Those adjustments allow the company to keep the spool lightweight while maintaining a stable connection and minimizing the risk of the cable breaking during flight.

The company needs the "perfect balance" to make sure it stays reliable and durable, as not all drone pilots have a wealth of flying experience, Oleg said.

The company faces trade-off decisions. Extending the range of its fiber-optic drones, for instance, would require larger cable spools, potentially leaving less room for explosives, Olha said. But not every drone needs a heavy payload. For some, speed and agility matter more.

Ukraine's soldiers often surprise the manufacturers of their weapons with how they use and adapt their gear, with troops sometimes repairing and modifying equipment near the front lines and experimenting with new tactics.

Kuldar Väärsi, the founder and CEO of Estonian ground robot maker Milrem Robotics, previously told Business Insider that Ukrainian soldiers used the company's technology in ways it was not expecting, including adding and attaching things to the robots. "Ukrainian troops are really creative, and they really find very simple ways how to get even more out of the equipment," he said.

How gear is used in the field often informs how Ukraine's defense companies update and modify their products. Soldiers give feedback to firms like TechEx every day, and companies send their own employees close to the fight to gather feedback and make changes.

Oleg said that TechEx receives direct feedback from soldiers constantly, resulting in weekly changes to its products. Without changes, a product in Ukraine "within three months, it will be outdated, and nobody will use it, because the industry is moving extremely fast," he said.

TechEx encourages soldier experimentation, including by making its drones with parts that are interchangeable. Soldiers can swap components to repair damaged drones or combine parts to create configurations the company never designed.

"Part of what I think TechEx is really great at is the ability to customize," Olha said.

• Drones in Ukraine act as flying communications bridges between operators and mission drones.
• They repeat the operators' signal to allow drones to fly farther while staying connected.
• The signal-repeating drones make other drones more resistant to Russia's electronic warfare.

Ukraine has created drones that act as flying relay towers, allowing its drones conducting missions to fly farther while making them harder for Russia to jam.

In a war where drones gather intel and account for more than 95% of Russia's front-line losses, Ukraine wants its operators to keep control of their drones over longer distances with stronger signals that are harder for Russia to break.

One solution is the signal repeater drone, a flying signal booster that operates between a pilot and a mission drone, relaying commands to the aircraft and sending back video and intelligence to the operator. Able to fly much higher than a ground antenna, airborne repeaters can extend a drone's range and help preserve the connection under pressure.

It increases the mission drone's operational range by extending how far it can fly while staying connected to its pilot. It's a similar principle to how wifi repeaters work.

Ukrainian arms maker Twist Robotics makes a signal-repeating drone, born from its Saker Scout drone.

Rostyslav Olenchyn, the company's co-founder and chief information officer, told Business Insider that the drone was widely used for reconnaissance and strike operations, but this war changes rapidly, with arms and warfighting technology quickly becoming obsolete. And without updates, this drone was at risk of falling victim to that pattern in the cat-and-mouse technology race.

Drones needed to be effective at longer ranges, and the Saker Scout's range was "not enough" for many missions. So, the drone was redesigned "for another objective. It became the signal relay station," Olenchyn said.

The Saker Scout, able to also be used in other combat roles, can extend the operational range of drones by more than 50 kilometers, according to the company.

The concept of using aircraft as signal middlemen isn't new. Militaries have used helicopters and planes to relay communications between assets and forces disconnected by the terrain, though usually troops rather than drones. These crewed aircraft, however, struggle to operate over Ukraine, but while such air assets are few and far between, drones are prolific.

Large crewed aircraft cannot "necessarily survive in the heavy saturated air of the battlefield," where drones and air defenses are a threatening presence, Olenchyn said. "So the small, versatile platform was a solution." He said that serial production of the Saker Scout with this function started in 2023.

The company's strike drone, the Signal Hunter, can also be used as a relay.

Other Ukrainian companies are also working in the space, with some updating existing drone types and some designing new ones. Roboneers, for example, developed a version of its Wardog drone that can carry relay equipment weighing up to three kilograms, and Skyriper makes the Skyriper-R Airborne Repeater, a dedicated drone with the single function of acting as an airborne repeater.

Volodymyr Zinovskyi, the CEO of the Ukrainian defense firm TAF Industries, told Business Insider that his company started making relay drones last year at the request of units, describing the technology as going from optional to essential.

Brave1, Ukraine's state-backed innovation platform, wrote last year that "the use of UAVs over long distances or in difficult terrain requires the use of repeaters - special devices that help increase the range of a stable signal several times."

Some Ukrainian drones are built for this relay mission, while others can be fitted with add-on repeater equipment.

Beyond overcoming geographical challenges, airborne repeaters also help counter Russian electronic warfare by strengthening the communications link between operators and mission drones, making it harder to disrupt, though Russia can still target the relay itself.

An analysis published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US think tank, last year described the creation of relay systems as a response to growing electronic warfare tactics, including the ability that both sides have to trace drone control signals back to their source for strikes on operators, priority targets in this war.

Dmytro "Liber" Zhluktenko, a former drone operator who now serves as a lessons-learned analyst with Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment "RAID," told Business Insider that Ukrainian forces are "keeping somewhat a stable radio link by mass utilizing signal repeaters."

He said that some uncrewed repeater aircraft are fixed-wing drones, while some are repurposed bomber-type drones. Instead of bombs, it just carries the signal repeater," he said.

"We optimize those signal repeater carriers to just stay in the air for an extremely long time, like one hour plus," he said. "That's their only job: to be in the air." Working with strike drones, they give operators a "great radio link over the target."

Oleksiy, the commander of the 2nd UAV engineer platoon of the International Defense Legion of Ukraine, told ArmyInform, the official information agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, last year that his unit uses repeaters on drones to expand the radio horizon of the drones they want to use and fly further to target Russia.

Russia is using the technology too, including to help attack drones fly deeper into Ukrainian territory.

And these lessons aren't limited to the Ukraine war. The US military is also experimenting with ways to extend drone operations and keep operators connected from farther away. The Marine Corps, for instance, has experimented with using helicopters as FPV motherships, as well as handing off control after launch.

Though different from Ukraine's airborne repeater work, both address a similar battlefield problem, which is that drones are only useful if operators can launch them, control them, and keep receiving information at tactically relevant distances.

Olenchyn said that updates, like the signal repeating ability, are critical in combat. He said that every two weeks, the company has "a new update, new kinds of techniques, new kinds of drones or functionality which are released."

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that speed restrictions on Ukraine's Starlink connection have been lifted.
• His comments marked the end of a chaotic 10-day period where connection speeds were throttled.
• Ukraine uses Starlink to fly its drones and interceptors.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that his military's access to a network of Elon Musk's satellites, which it relies on for defense, had been restored.

Zelenskyy's comment, made in an X post, came after a chaotic 10 days that began when an advisor to the Ukrainian president said that drones and other projectiles were losing access to the Starshield network.

Starshield is the military application of Musk's Starlink satellite network. In the no-man's-land of war-torn eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military relies on Starshield satellites to give it control of fast-flying, exploding drones and interceptors.

"I thank all Americans and all our partners who took this seriously and truly helped — members of Congress, senators, all the media, the State Department, and the President," Zelenskyy said in a video he posted to X on Saturday.

Though Musk, as the CEO of SpaceX, to some degree owns the network of satellites, he said in an X post that "any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS."

In an X post on Saturday, Musk differentiated between Starlink, which is used for commercial purposes, and Starshield, which is "controlled by the US government," he said.

"Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people," Musk said. "That loophole was closed last week."

The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk himself had ordered the slowdown. Earlier this month, after Ukraine targeted Russian oil facilities, both Musk and President Donald Trump made statements disparaging Zelenskyy. Trump has tried to ease high gas prices — which spiked after the US attacked Iran in February — by loosening sanctions on Russian energy.

"Zelensky has gone too far," Musk said in an X post on October 10.

For his part, Trump told reporters that he didn't know who ordered the slowdown. "I don't know who it was, but I'd like to find out," he said on October 19.

As Russia attempts to bombard Kyiv into submission ahead of what is widely expected to be one of the most brutal winters of the nearly seven-year-long war, a Starlink connection allows Ukraine to intercept some of Russia's slower-paced drones.

The throttling of Starlink prompted a rare outburst from Ukraine's leader, who has sought to control his demeanor after a disastrous Oval Office meeting last year, when Trump berated Zelenskyy for not adequately appreciating US support.

In an interview with Piers Morgan on his YouTube channel on October 14, Zelenskyy called the Starlink slowdown "a big mistake."

"This decision will bring a lot of human losses," he said.

SpaceX and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent on Saturday.

• A NATO drone maker is partnering with a Ukrainian firm to manufacture drone parts underground.
• ORQA says the partnership offers lessons in keeping factories running during wartime.
• Western companies often overlook Ukraine's experience in manufacturing under attack, it says.

A NATO drone maker is teaming up with Ukraine's defense industry and building drone parts underground. The company's CEO said it's seeking to learn lessons in wartime production that could prove critical for Western defense companies in a crisis.

Croatian drone technology company ORQA and Ukrainian drone maker General Cherry are jointly developing and manufacturing interceptor drones, components, and other counter-drone systems in both countries. As part of the partnership, they are building an underground factory in Ukraine to make components.

Working amid Ukraine's wartime risks teaches the company valuable lessons in manufacturing while under attack, ORQA CEO Srđan Kovačević told Business Insider. Producing components in Ukraine is also more efficient than making them in NATO and shipping them to the Ukrainian military, he said.

Kovačević said his company is "learning from Ukraine," where industry is "under constant threat."

"They were also compelled to go underground, to go wide, to de-risk their assets in distribution," he said. "So I think that's the way forward for any critical capabilities."

Ukrainian defense firms are splitting their manufacturing across multiple sites, frequently relocating, and moving some work underground to avoid being targeted by Russian attacks. It's less efficient, but more resilient to attacks. Some Western officials and companies warn that it's time for European industry to learn these practices amid concerns about Russian aggression.

"Distributed systems are much more resilient to any disruption than concentrated systems, centralized systems," Kovačević said. "It's simply about not having a single point of failure."

Ukraine has "this immensely valuable lived experience of building and scaling under fire," the ORQA CEO said, "that's being often abstracted and neglected by Western companies." That, however, is starting to change, he said.

"I think the thinking is really shifting on the European side as well, that this distributed nature actually reinforces resilience even though there are economic downsides to it."

Raivis Melnis, the defense minister of Latvia, told Business Insider that NATO companies work in a far more concentrated way than Ukrainian ones do, and "the question is whether we are ready to produce the systems in different locations, dispersed, and how we organize that."

He wants Latvian and Ukrainian defense industries to work together in part so they can learn how Ukrainian companies maintain production during a war.

Davyd Aloian, the deputy secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, told Business Insider earlier this year that defense companies within parts of NATO should "definitely" start breaking up their production more.

Some defense industry figures have voiced similar concerns about the state of production in the West. Karmo Saar, the head of sales for Estonian drone maker Krattworks, told Business Insider that in a war with Russia, if European companies don't disperse more, "I think we're going to be punished."

Dispersing production is not without trade-offs, though. Achi, CEO of the Ukrainian-Estonian defense technology company and ground robot maker Ark Robotics, told Business Insider that such defensive steps are "necessary," but "not ideal." Operations would be easier with everything in one place.

Choosing Ukraine despite the danger

Some Ukrainian companies have begun setting up production in NATO countries, both to better share their expertise with partner nations and to operate without the risk of Russian attacks.

But Kovačević, whose company makes drones as well as drone technology, including controllers, receivers, goggles, video equipment, and flight simulators, said that building in Ukraine comes with upsides.

The company, which supplies 24 NATO allies, could have done all of its work with General Cherry in Croatia, but instead, they are spreading their joint work across both countries.

Kovačević said building components in Europe and then importing them into Ukraine is "more inefficient than actually doing it in Ukraine." It's also more expensive, and Ukraine has shown its ability to produce in large volumes.

Localizing the supply chain also means that all parties can "exchange information more efficiently," including about what's happening and what's needed on the battlefield.

He said he understands why some Ukrainian companies are building gear on NATO soil, but he sees value in partnering with General Cherry in Ukraine. He said the Ukrainian company, one of the country's largest drone makers, has "a high operational excellence in running their own manufacturing operations in a safe manner, even under constant threat."

The partnership also offers lessons beyond manufacturing. He said that while the West "has a very deep technology expertise," it lacks "this lived experience of taking that technology and applying it to the operational reality of the 21st-century warfare."

The goal is to both supply Ukraine and to equip NATO with weapons shaped by Ukraine's battlefield experience and expertise. In Croatia, the partners are establishing a joint serial-production facility for co-developed interceptor drones and other counter-drone systems destined for NATO, while in Ukraine, they intend to create drone components, including electronics and communications systems, which General Cherry says it will supply to "all our partners in Ukraine," not just use itself.

Ukraine is already able to make the drones that the partnership will produce in Croatia, but "what they lack is the capacity to build components that go into those systems," Kovačević said, explaining the focus of the Ukrainian facility. He said the project won't disrupt Ukraine's existing supply chains. One of ORQA's priorities is to reduce reliance on Chinese products, and it wants to help Ukraine's industry do the same.

"Now," he said, "it's time to merge the two and emerge better off on both sides of this partnership."

• The arms race is so intense that Ukrainian companies can never stop updating their products.
• One firm said a weapon could become obsolete in just three months without updates.
• Ukrainian firms work directly with soldiers to improve weapons faster than Western manufacturers.

The fast-moving arms development race amid Russia's war against Ukraine means that the defense companies can't ever really consider a product finished or stop making regular updates, a leading Ukrainian drone maker told Business Insider.

Ukraine's defense companies gather constant feedback from soldiers using their products in combat and make frequent updates, sometimes daily. Many companies and soldiers say that without these updates, their gear could become irrelevant on the battlefield within weeks.

Oleg, an executive at major Ukrainian fiber-optic and interceptor drone maker TechEx, told Business Insider that "the most important thing is that you want this product to evolve over time. There will never be a moment when you just build a product, and it's just good."

If a defense company "just stays with one single product, I think within three months, it will be outdated, and nobody will use it," he said, speaking on the condition that only his first name be used for safety purposes.

TechEx's drones, he said, are updated weekly, sometimes with major modifications and other times with adjustments of just a few millimeters or grams.

In this war, he said, "when you build a good product, the enemy builds the countermeasure." To stay in the fight, weapons makers must keep adapting. "You need to work constantly."

Ukraine's Frontline Robotics, for example, told Business Insider that it gets feedback from soldiers 24/7 and makes small changes to its products up to 20 times a month, with major updates coming roughly every six months.

Ark Robotics, another Ukrainian company, said it may make about half a dozen different changes to a product over a few weeks.

Companies are baking the ability for fast and regular updates into their design from the very beginning, making them modular and software-first so changes can be made remotely, quickly, and without needing to redesign or rebuild the entire product from scratch.

The traditional model for Western weapons development is slower. A design is typically matured and tested before production, then is built in relatively stable batches for years, with changes made around scheduled upgrades rather than thinking about constant redesign.

An analysis published by RUSI in December wrote that Western weapons systems "are treated as indivisible wholes, with procurement cycles often stretching over 10 to 20 years and upgrades requiring entire programme restructurings. This legacy approach treats innovation as a rare event rather than a continuous process."

In Ukraine, companies and soldiers are allowed to directly communicate and innovate. Companies text, Whatsapp, and video call soldiers even when they are in the field to exchange constant feedback and requests. Ukraine's model is bottom-up and decentralized.

Oleg said that TechEx's technical support department works with over 100 units to constantly support them and get battlefield feedback. Ukrainian companies often have employees who visit soldiers near the front lines, gather feedback, and help them make repairs or upgrades that can then be integrated back into the products. Soldiers often surprise Ukrainian companies with how they use or modify their gear, which in turn influences what they build and what features they add.

Western companies have long operated differently. Feedback from typically comes through a slower, formal chain rather than straight from the soldier who is using it. But many Western companies are starting to change their processes, particularly those with products in use in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, US Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who oversees NATO military operations as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told Business Insider that NATO wants to establish the same kind of battlefield feedback loop that Ukraine has, and that's something allies are working on.

The drawback to constantly changing or redesigning weapons is that it makes it much harder to produce at scale.

Achi, the CEO of the Ukrainian-Estonian robot, drone, and software company Ark Robotics, previously told Business Insider that when "talking about scale manufacturing, any change comes at a very high price," slowing down or even halting production.

But change is essential. "You cannot afford not to be able to make changes," he said. That forces manufacturers to anticipate changing battlefield needs while trying to maintain production.

Oleg said that European partners need to prepare for the reality of constant adaptation in weapons development, a warning echoed by other Ukrainian companies and officials. He cautioned that Russia is "really good at technology" and at developing countermeasures to even Ukraine's best weapons. "They're being underestimated by a lot of people."

For Ukrainian weapons makers, that means there may never be a point when a product is truly finished.

• A major Western drone firm says working in Ukraine is key to getting gear to the standard NATO needs.
• ORQA is partnering with Ukraine's industry to co-produce drone systems, including for the NATO market.
• Its CEO said Ukraine has battlefield experience and operational excellence that can shape gear for NATO.

A Western company developing drone technology for NATO militaries says that working in Ukraine is the best way to ensure its gear meets the alliance's needs for a future fight.

ORQA, a Croatian company that makes drones and drone technology, including controllers, receivers, goggles, video equipment, and flight simulators, already supplies parts and systems to two dozen NATO allies. But it wants to draw on Ukraine's battlefield experience to improve its products.

Working in Ukraine "creates an opportunity to really channel this sort of operational expertise to shape these products. And then these products can be made to a standard that NATO demands," CEO Srđan Kovačević told Business Insider.

ORQA produces components used by Ukrainian defense tech company General Cherry and is partnering with the firm to jointly make drone systems and spread Ukraine's drone expertise.

The war in Ukraine is the most intense drone war ever fought, and getting feedback from the battlefield provides critical insight into what soldiers need most.

"If I'm being blunt, there are only a few parts of the world where you can actively shoot down these unmanned aerial threats in a real-world environment," Kovačević told Business Insider.

That same drive has prompted Western defense companies, ranging from small start-ups to major primes, to set up manufacturing facilities, repair hubs, and offices in Ukraine, seeking battlefield feedback to improve their technology faster.

ORQA is also seeking to better understand how Ukraine's defense industry scales, moves quickly, and works in wartime.

Ukrainian defense firms are producing drones and other weapons at a much faster rate than many of their Western counterparts.

Kovačević said that "the West has a tremendous amount to learn from Ukraine," saying that the "operational excellence that Ukrainian defense forces have developed is unparalleled in the Western world."

He said that while the West "has a very deep technology expertise," it lacks "this lived experience of taking that technology and applying it to the operational reality of the 21st-century warfare."

"Now," he said, "it's time to merge the two and emerge better off on both sides of this partnership."

General Cherry is one of Ukraine's biggest drone companies and has announced partnerships with other Western defense tech companies.

ORQA and General Cherry intend to manufacture in both countries, supplying NATO and its allies with Ukrainian-developed counter-drone technology while expanding domestic production of drone components in Ukraine.

Kovačević said Ukrainian companies like General Cherry have "immensely valuable lived experience of building and scaling under fire," something that is often "neglected by Western companies," but they can learn.

The significant "volumes that Ukrainian drone companies are able to produce really dwarf anything that's happening in the West right now," he added.

Western leaders are encouraging industrial collaboration, and NATO has launched programs to bring Ukrainian and allied defense companies together.

ORQA isn't alone in looking to Ukraine's extensive battlefield experience to develop better weapons for NATO. Latvia-based Origin Robotics, for example, makes BLAZE interceptor drones purchased by several NATO militaries and BEAK, a drone-launched precision-guided weapon used by Ukrainian forces.

Its CEO, Agris Kipurs, previously told Business Insider that the company takes lessons from its work in Ukraine, "but we adapt those weapons systems specifically to be used in a NATO country. And NATO countries and the armies of NATO countries are our customers. That is the user we build for."

Kovačević said Ukrainian technology can't simply be transplanted into NATO militaries. Ukraine has had to develop weapons at breakneck speed and make do with what's available.

NATO, however, has time to take operational knowledge, contextualize it for alliance forces, and build these products to the necessary standards using Western technology, he said.

Kovačević said the goal of these industrial partnerships is to supply NATO without undermining Ukraine's ability to meet its own wartime needs.

ORQA also aims to boost Ukraine's domestic production of drone components and reduce its reliance on foreign suppliers.

Ukraine is "relying heavily on non-Ukrainian and non-European supply chains," Kovačević said, adding that reducing that dependence is strategically important. ORQA says it manufactures key components in-house and avoids Chinese-made parts to strengthen its supply chain.

• Palmer Luckey and Ben Lamm have partnered up for a new startup.
• Their startup, Warhound, aims to create a new league of highly capable military dogs.
• Warhound announced that it had $200 million in its seed round.

"Man's best friend deserves man's best tech."

That's what Palmer Luckey said about his new startup, Warhound. The Anduril cofounder, along with Colossal Biosciences cofounder Ben Lamm, raised $200 million in seed funding for the startup that aims to genetically engineer high-performance military dogs.

Warhound said in a Thursday press release that it wants to rebuild the US's supply of working dogs for military forces, law enforcement, and emergency first-response teams.

It added that most of the military dogs currently working in the US are acquired from Europe, and many are eventually deemed unfit for service.

Colossal Biosciences is a biotechnology company that uses gene-editing tools to protect endangered species and revive extinct ones. It will help produce healthier dogs suited to demanding missions, with Lamm telling TechCrunch that this involves enhancing the dogs' speed, agility, and ability to sniff out bombs.

Anduril's contribution to Warhound is the external hardware to keep the dogs and their handlers safe, such as eye and ear protection.

Warhound's $200 million seed round was backed by several VC firms, including In-Q-Tel, Sequoia Capital, ARK Invest, and Franklin Templeton.

Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, said in the release, "Palmer, Ben and the Warhound team are exceptional. Sequoia is proud to back them."

Warhound will be led by CEO David Spirk, a senior counselor at Palantir and a veteran of the US Marine Corps. He was also a former data officer for the Department of War.

The startup, based in Texas, has made commitments to animal welfare, saying in the release that it's certified by the American Humane Society, the US's first national animal welfare organization.

It said that improving the health and training success of the dogs will limit the number who enter unnecessary intensive training and enable safer missions.

• Russia looks to be moving toward 3D printed cruise missiles for its next era of air attacks on Ukraine.
• The threat could be so major, turbojet Shaheds would seem like a small problem, one drone guru said.
• GUR recently posted details of the Filin, a cheap Russian missile reported to fly as fast as 500 mph.

Russia's next big bet in the air war will likely move past jet-powered Shaheds to a deep arsenal of new cruise missiles, two of Ukraine's most prominent drone experts warned on Thursday.

Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov and Serhii Sternenko wrote separately on their Telegram channels about the Filin, an 11-foot Russian winged cruise missile that Ukraine's military intelligence service recently unveiled.

These cheap weapons possess superior capabilities that would easily overshadow the threat posed by the Shahed, according to the pair, both former drone advisors to Ukraine's defense ministry.

"The mass use of this type of aerial attack weapon is what awaits us very soon," wrote Sternenko, who runs a major foundation that crowdfunds for Ukraine's military, in a Telegram post.

"Then we will remember the jet Shaheds only as a small problem compared to this," he added.

Beskrestnov, a drone analyst, said he had "long predicted that our adversary is betting on cheap cruise missiles for the future, not on jet Shaheds."

He wrote on his Telegram channel that the Filin can fly faster, maneuver better, and carry a heavier payload than Russia's current turbojet drones,

"They do not need drone ports, many of them can be launched from helicopters and UAVs. And most importantly, they can be produced from Russian components," Beskrestnov added.

A strike at nearly 500 mph for cheap

On Wednesday, Ukraine's military intelligence agency, GUR, released extensive details on the Filin, which it said Russia had begun deploying at the end of summer 2026.

The Filin, it said, is the "continuation of the trend of the Russian military-industrial complex to develop inexpensive air attack weapons with jet propulsion and ground launch."

The ground-launched missile can carry a 100kg warhead, and Russia has said that it can fly at speeds of almost 500 mph at a range of 745 miles. By comparison, the Kremlin's most advanced jet-powered drone deployed so far, the Geran-5, is known to fly at a maximum speed of 370 mph.

The Filin can also fly at "ultra-low altitudes" and as high as 3.7 miles, GUR said.

Similar to Russia's Shahed drones, the Filin features a carbon and fiberglass fuselage, with some of its parts produced via 3D printing, the intelligence service added.

And as with turbojet Shaheds, GUR also said that the Filin is filled with foreign electronics in its flight controller, inertial navigation system, equipment control unit, and counter-jamming hardware.

The agency listed 35 components from the US, including transistors and converters; 22 from China; and 13 more from Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the Netherlands.

Notably, GUR said the Filin's engine is Russian-made, compared to the Chinese engines used on many of Moscow's turbojet drones. The same engine has been found on other recently unveiled Russian missiles, such as the air-launched Kover and Monochrome.

Much of Russia's ability to reduce the cost of its new cruise missiles is owed to its use of commercial engines and components. Another high-profile Russian missile that also uses civilian tech is the Banderol, which emerged in the spring of 2025 and has been straining Ukraine's air defense networks in the last few months.

The Banderol flies more slowly and has a shorter range than the Filin, but it still reaches a max speed of 435 mph, making it much harder for Ukraine to intercept with drones. Its estimated price is $150,000 per unit — about a sixteenth the cost of a traditional Kh-101 cruise missile — so it's easier to mass-produce.

The frequent use of weapons like the Banderol over the summer has led to fears that Russia will lean into its tactic, often nicknamed "missile spam," to keep pushing Ukrainian air defenses.

"What is the Air Force command doing now to build up countermeasures in advance?" Sternenko wrote on Wednesday about the missile threat.