OPINION: The Race for Drone Supremacy Has One Shot – Ukraine

If the US doesn’t get onboard with Ukraine to scale up drone production and technology, then Russia, China, North Korean and Iran will leave us in the dust.

Originally published at Kyiv Post on Jul 28, 2025

Bill Cole · Kyiv Post

Over the past four months I have issued warning after warning. From Capitol Hill briefings to op-eds to a sermon I gave on Easter Sunday in Canton, Georgia, my message has been consistent. We are sleepwalking through a drone revolution that will define the future of war, and the front line of that revolution is Ukraine.

I started the Peace Through Strength Institute to wake Washington up to the ground truth. And the truth is this: Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are building the largest and most advanced drone army the world has ever seen. This is not speculative. It is happening right now. They are learning, scaling, and accelerating faster than the West.

Russia alone is producing thousands of drones daily. Kamikaze drones. ISR drones. Loitering munitions. Long-range bombers. AI-enabled swarm systems. They have weaponized the Shahed production line and plan to launch 2,000 kamikaze drones per day into Ukraine. These are 11-foot, 400-pound flying bombs designed to terrorize cities and overwhelm defenses.

What does Washington do? It puts one in a museum. A Shahed drone is literally on display at the Spy Museum in Washington, DC as if it is some Cold War relic instead of a weapon reshaping modern combat in real time. This is not just tone-deaf. It is suicidal.

We are not talking about a future war. We are in it already.

We need to face the reality: drones have completely taken over the battlefield and the interior of Ukraine, the largest country in Europe by land mass. The attacks are constant. Civilian shelters, buses, and train stations are being hit. Friends I speak with daily are being hunted and killed. Russia has reached massive scale and relentless innovation. I am not exaggerating when I say that the movie Terminator is playing out in real life. Think about ChatGPT – no one was using it a year ago. Now it performs 20 tasks a day for billions of people. Drones are evolving the same way. They are advancing faster than anyone imagined, and they are killing at scale.

What makes this worse is that Russia is losing 1,200 soldiers a day to gain mere inches of territory. Over 30,000 per month. And they can replace them. They do not care. The Kremlin will keep terrorizing civilians and bleeding Ukraine on the front line unless they are exhausted at the front. That is the only way to stop them. And that requires drone parity. Not museum showcases.

I have seen the front. I have met the drone brigades. I have been inside the Ukrainian defense ecosystem. I can tell you plainly. This is an 80 percent drone war. ISR, FPV, loitering munitions, mid-range and long-range bombers, anti-drone systems. Hundreds of drone types are operating across the 30-kilometer-wide kill zone on both sides. A soldier cannot move without being tracked, targeted, and attacked. Movement is death. Armored vehicles are caged. Roads are covered in nets. Trenches are scanned and bombed. The battlefield has evolved into a drone-dominated zone of constant surveillance and lethal precision.

Ukraine is holding position, but Russia is innovating faster and scaling faster. Why? Because they have poured tens of billions of dollars into drones. We estimate Ukraine has spent around $4 billion on its drone ecosystem. Russia, by comparison, may have spent $40 to $100 billion. And they have more coming.

The only reason Ukraine has not lost this war is because of its innovation. Its drone brigades have stunned the world with FPV tactics, real-time targeting, and adaptive battlefield solutions. Operation Spiderweb, where 117 FPVs wiped out $7 billion of Russian air assets, was a $100,000 Ukrainian mission.

That triggered the White House’s recent push for US drone dominance. But we are still not focused on the core issue, which is funding Ukraine’s drone ecosystem right now, not years from now.

We do not have time to figure this out alone. If we want to win the next war, we must invest in this one.

Let me be clear. Ukraine is our Trojan horse. Not in a deceptive sense, but in a strategic one. Inside Ukraine’s military is the most battle-tested, rapidly evolving drone doctrine on Earth. Inside Ukraine’s factories is the fastest-moving drone innovation pipeline in the free world. Inside Ukraine’s software labs and tactical units is the knowledge that the United States desperately needs. We do not have time to figure this out alone. If we want to win the next war, we must invest in this one.

That means unspent US funds, not new money, should be redirected immediately to support the following: Ukrainian drone manufacturers, frontline brigades operating ISR and FPV systems, software and AI integration across drone platforms, defense-tech incubators like Brave1 under the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and close the loop back to the US with field integration platforms like Congressman Harrigan’s SkyFoundry. These initiatives help get solutions from lab to factory to training to the front in days instead of months.

A Congressional office asked us to prepare a briefing on the US-Ukraine mega-deal for drones. We did, and our top line is simple. It is a strategic leap, but only if we fund the front first. Before we start importing drones from Ukraine, we need to secure their ability to keep producing. That means neutralizing the front through Ukrainian victory. Once they reach parity, and they will if we act fast, then we unlock a two-way pipeline of drone technology, operational knowledge, and global military advantage.

This is not just my view. General Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief, warned that by 2027 this war will be fully autonomous. He laid out battlefield trends that are already taking shape. AI-enabled targeting. Swarming drones. Fully automated kill chains. Air Force General Alexus G. Grynkewich, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, issued the same alarm. Ukraine’s pace of innovation is unmatched. We must either catch up or fall behind.

We are not talking about a future war. We are in it already. We are not just observers. We are at risk of becoming the next target. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are testing the free world’s limits. They are watching us respond with panels, press releases, and museums. They will not stop until they re stopped.

It is time to act. We need to reallocate unspent US funds to arm Ukraine with drones, support their ecosystem, and learn from them while we still can. This is our only shot to become drone dominant.

If we fail, the skies over Ukraine today will become the skies over Poland, over Taiwan, and eventually, over America.