Ukrainian military officials are enmeshed in a hotly contested debate over whether U.S.-provided Gray Eagle strike drones can be effective against increasingly resilient Russian air defenses, while the Biden administration considers providing Kyiv with the systems that became ubiquitous in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The risk of operating drones in Ukraine, which saw cheap strike drones like the Turkish Bayraktar have significant impact against the Russian military in the first days of the war, has increased as the fight has moved east to the Donbas region, which abuts Russia’s Western Military District and larger clusters of advanced air defense systems, such as S-300 and S-400 missile batteries.
But there is a split between front-line airmen and Ukraine’s chief of staff on the drones, according to multiple Ukrainian military officials, who recently spoke to Foreign Policy and other media outlets on condition of anonymity, identified only by their military call signs. Read More
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