Gray Eagle MQ-1C
Originally published on ZeroHedge
These past few months have seen the ‘war of drones’ play a decisive role on the Ukrainian battlefield. For the Russian side, drones were heavily utilized in the ramped up air campaign to degrade Ukrainian energy infrastructure following the bombing of Crimea’s Kerch Strait Bridge. For Ukraine’s army, Western-supplied drones have allowed them to strike increasingly behind Russian front lines. There’s meanwhile been international condemnation over the prevalence of Iran-supplied suicide drones launched from the Russian side.
Ukraine is of course hoping to begin deploying drones with longer reach. But, one day after the Midterms election, the Biden administration has shut the door on Kiev obtaining more advanced and longer range UAVs from the US ahead of the likely political pressure from what will now be a GOP House with a narrow majority.
Is this is beginning of the end for the era of US blank check writing for Ukraine?
“The Biden administration won’t give Ukraine advanced drones despite pleas from Kyiv and a bipartisan group of members of Congress, a reflection of the limit of the kinds of weaponry Washington is willing to provide for Ukraine’s defense,” The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
The timing of this leak to the media is fascinating, given the Biden administration’s relative hawkishness was a key differentiating talking point against Republicans in the lead-up to the Midterms (especially given the Ukraine-flag-waving virtues of much of the Democratic Party base).
The Biden administration “won’t give Ukraine advanced drones despite pleas” from the Zelensky government as well as some and members of Congress.
In particular, the White House has nixed a proposal to hand the Gray Eagle MQ-1C drones over to Ukraine on fears that it could rapidly escalate confrontation with Russia. The question was reportedly under consideration for months.
The WSJ report, citing US officials, explains that US planners worry that doing such would “signal to Moscow that the US was providing weapons that could target positions inside Russia.” The calculus likely includes wanting to avoid further direct attacks on Crimea, which President Zelensky has pledged to liberate.
The report also cited the further US intelligence concern that the MQ-1C Gray Eagle sensitive technology could be stolen, such as its ultra-advanced cameras, if it crashed and fell into enemy hands where it could be studied and potentially reverse engineered.
Starting in September, a bipartisan group of Congressmen began lobbying the Pentagon hard to move on advanced drone transfers to Ukraine, in hopes it would put pressure on the White House. The Congressional leaders sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arguing it was vital to the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
If they are so advanced, then they should be confident that one wont be shot down or captured, and then reverse engineered in Russia then handed off to China and Iran to copy. But they’re not so confident. So that tells me, they’re not so advanced.
We are talking about a drone that just Iran did reverse engineering some time ago
The U.S. admitted they will not be sending advanced drones to Ukraine because they fear Russia’s retaliation for such a provocation. The U.S. and NATO know their limitations. Russia warned the U.S. not to send any advanced drones or else and so the U.S. is following Putin’s orders. Italy also stated today that they will not be sending anymore weapons to Ukraine. The U.S. and NATO have been thoroughly humiliated in Ukraine by Russia and now Iran as well. NATO spent over 100 billion dollars in the last 8 years preparing Ukraine for war against Russia and Russia obliterated NATO’s second biggest military with 180 thousand troops and a few lawn mower piston engine cheap drones. lol. Embarrassing.
WE ALL KNOW THE REAL REASON THE US IS NOT SENDING THEIR SO CALLED ADVANCED DRONES TO UKRAINE. Much like the overrated Bayraktar drones which the Russians easily shot down, any of the US drones will also prove to be completely useless against Russia’s advanced anti-drone weapons. Just like the rest of the gay NATO weapons that are overly high maintenance. I remember at the beginning of the war the U.S. media was bragging making a huge deal out of the US loitering drones that they gave Ukraine lol. Those drones didn’t even tickle a single Russian soldier’s ahole. As a matter of fact Zelensky was caught having his ahole loitered by one of those gay American drones. By the way American nuclear silos are still being operrated with floppy disk technology and Commodore 64 computers from the 1980s.
This comes on the back of the Russian pull back from Kherson,i am starting to think some talking has been going on behind the scenes of a possible deal in Ukraine,of course i could be totally wrong.
everybody thinks so, but what is the real goal of the deal?
Saving that technology to exterminate the American people…
Some sanity?
Too afraid the Russians will command them to land in Crimea so they can pick them apart and find out there’s a hampster wheel inside, I guess.
“In particular, the White House has nixed a proposal to hand the Gray Eagle MQ-1C drones over to Ukraine…”
To rephrase….Pentacon is afraid of having its birds hacked and grounded as in Iran and then exposed to the rest of the world for the expensive buZZard$ that they are.
Z
They will be shot down in second 2….or 3. Only idiots who don’t know on what planet we live can get that. Only to read the characteristics of this shit and you have the future picture. Filthy sorosist CIA bandits are working to degrade more the murican army when those flying shithole will encounter S400+ systems. Not for nothing russians, iranians, chinese.are trying to develop smaller and smaller drones…..Look for the Lancets models trajectory: they will go from big to small. And this motha fucker yankee morons will have same fate as the serbian downed dipshit ‘invisible fighter’.
Ukraine doesn’t need those drones or any other modern weapons simce Ru Army will fall back to Russina border in few months.
Not at all, support for Ukraine will collapse well before then.
Russia is importing newer technologies on to the battlefield while all the m777s are being destroyed by drones, the U.S and Canada and others can’t keep supplying them indefinitely.
The himars are also on a limited lease and before long all the foreign volunteers will be either frozen out or starved or blown up, this winter is going to be 2014-2015 for Ukraine’s “army” all over again.
The U.S is already afraid of causing Russia to respond with harsher tactics.
By December of 2023 all you will see is Ukrainian terrorists being killed trying to murder people in the annexed provinces of Ukraine.
Sent all…this was a good targets for the Russian ADS….
Would only end up in Iran, as they reverse engineer the trash.
No they didn’t slam shut for drones to Ukraine. That is just for creating tactical confusion in the Russian political and military leadership. This naive leadership believes whatever shit the west says in its media instead of getting detailed information and getting prepared very well. They didn’t know that Ukraine prepared 1 million soldiers from Ukraine and some NATO countries. The Russian political and military leadership were caught off guard. Now they are running away from fighting the 1 million Ukraine soldiers. The Russian leadership thinks that they can win the war if they increase the number of soldiers to half a million. No they will not win the war, unless they match soldier for soldier. Now Ukraine is fighting with modern weapons supplied by NATO. Russia need to match soldier for soldier to have a chance to win this war.
“Slams Door” on drones because they are getting destroyed and are too costly to lose to the Russian military that will wring all of it’s “technology” out in order to exploit it…
Then there is this novelty out of Norway which should make C-130s targets along with B-1s and B-52s… https://www.zerohedge.com/military/watch-us-drops-experimental-parachuted-missile-arctic-warning-russia
Just more proof that Yankee D00dle is frustrated that they can’t get there hypersonic technology to work significantly enough towards production while theirs and the UK’s economy continues it’s descent into the abyss of hyperinflation!…
At least credit them for getting one “hyper” system right!
About 70 to 90% of posts now involve people talking about penis and anus.