The Pentagon Is Learning Drone Warfare From Ukraine

BusinessAerospace & DefenseThe Pentagon Is Learning Drone Warfare From UkraineByDavid Kirichenko,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Kirichenko is a journalist focusing on war and technology.Follow AuthorMay 15, 2026, 09:00am EDTUkrainian pilots of the 116th Mechanized Brigade practice flights on FPV drones in the Kupiansk direction. (Photo by Arsen Dzodzaiev/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)Global Images Ukraine via Getty ImagesA drone costing a few hundred dollars can kill a tank worth millions. A cluster of them, smuggled inside cargo containers, can destroy a strategic bomber. Ukraine turned that reality into a way of war. Now the Pentagon is sending people to learn how.U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators this week that American military personnel have been deployed to Ukraine to study how drones are being used in combat.“I’ve personally approved additional personnel there to learn from that drone battlefield, both on offense and defense,” Hegseth said, adding that the Pentagon was working to incorporate lessons from Ukraine as drone dominance becomes central to modern warfare.The comments came during Senate hearings in which Senator Mitch McConnell pressed Hegseth on whether senior U.S. officials were facing restrictions on traveling to Kyiv. McConnell had noted on April 28 that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George visited Ukraine last year to see “the rapid evolution of battlefield tactics and technologies.” Driscoll described Ukraine as the “Silicon Valley of warfare.”That assessment is not limited to the Pentagon. In an interview with Fox News on May 14, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Ukraine’s armed forces the “strongest, most powerful” military in Europe, arguing that the war has forced Ukraine to develop “new tactics, new techniques, new equipment” and “hybrid asymmetrical warfare.”MORE FOR YOUUkraine’s Drone Warfare LessonsFightin...