Late last October, two Ukrainian military officers flew to the US to visit the headquarters of Skydio Inc., a Silicon Valley manufacturer of quadcopter drones. Like the machine gun and the tank before them, drones are remaking battle, and since Russia’s 2022 invasion, Ukraine has become the world’s laboratory for drone warfare. Quadcopters bought for a few hundred dollars and loaded with explosives have been transformed into lethally efficient guided missiles. Ukrainian pilots wearing virtual-reality headsets steer them into combat, stalking and killing Russian infantrymen from above and destroying multimillion-dollar tanks and armored personnel carriers. The Russians have responded with drone units of their own. At this stage of the conflict, the weapons are responsible for the majority of the casualties on both sides. Ukraine’s military goes through unmanned craft at a furious pace. A military-industrial complex of small domestic drone companies, aided by US funds, has sprung up in response, but the country still has to import much of its supply. The two men who came to Skydio’s offices in San Mateo, California, were senior officers in the Unmanned Systems Forces, a branch of the Ukrainian military created last year and the first in the world dedicated entirely to such weapons.

Full feature : U.S. national security concerns could help the drone startup Skydio compete against Chinese drones technology.