Critical US anti-drone technology redirected from Ukraine

The Trump administration is redirecting a key anti-drone technology earmarked for Ukraine to American forces instead, reflecting a waning commitment to Ukraine’s defence.

A US Air Force Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle in flight. The US has adapted ground-to-air laser-guided rockets for the F-15Es so they can be employed to destroy Houthi or Iranian drones. The rockets can use the kind of detonator fuzes that had been intended for Ukraine. Picture: Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Trump administration is redirecting a key anti-drone technology earmarked for Ukraine to American forces, a move that reflects the Pentagon’s waning commitment to Kyiv’s defence.

The Pentagon quietly notified the US congress last week that special fuzes (detonators) for ground-based rockets that Ukraine uses to shoot down Russian drones are now being allocated to US Air Force units in the Middle East.

The move comes as President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him in a phone call that Moscow would have to respond forcefully to recent Ukrainian attacks, dampening the prospects for a halt in the war that began in early 2022.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth skipped a meeting on Wednesday at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters with European defence ministers on co-ordinating military aid to Ukraine.

Mr Hegseth has warned that European allies must provide the overwhelming share of future military assistance to Kyiv while casting the western Pacific as the Pentagon’s “priority theatre”.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks in Singapore at the weekend. AP Photo/Anupam Nath

The defence chief went further in an internal memo last month. In it, he authorised the Pentagon’s Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, a Pentagon office that seeks to ensure that US military commanders’ urgent needs for weapons and logistics are met, to provide the fuzes to the US Air Force, even though they were initially bought for Ukraine.

The Pentagon told the Senate armed services committee in the previously undisclosed message that the US military’s need for the fuzes was a “Secretary of Defence Identified Urgent Issue”. The Pentagon declined requests for comment.

The decision to redirect the component illustrates the scarcity of key defence items as Ukraine steels itself for more Russian drone and missile attacks, while US Air Force units in the Middle East prepare for a possible conflict with Iran or renewed fighting with Houthi militants in Yemen.

Supporters of the move say the Pentagon has the flexibility to take such an action under the emergency military spending bill passed last year.

But the move had prompted concerns among Ukraine’s supporters in congress, who say that the Pentagon hasn’t explained what effect the move would have on Ukrainian defences or whether the US Air Force need is urgent.

The Biden administration arranged to send the fuzes along with numerous other weapons systems under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which authorised the spending of billions of dollars in US government funds to buy weapons and components from American defence firms.

Though the funds for the program have been expended, deliveries are scheduled to reach Ukraine this year and next unless the Trump administration diverts more systems to fill the US military’s inventories.

The Trump administration inherited the authority to send Ukraine up to $US3.85 billion ($5.9bn) in weapons from Pentagon’s stocks but refrained from doing so. It hasn’t asked for more funding for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

The fuzes are intended for the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, a ground-to-air laser-guided rocket for defending against drones. The Pentagon has touted the effectiveness of the rockets. A critical component is the “proximity fuze”, which detonates explosives when the rocket nears a drone.

The Air Force has adapted the rockets so that it can be fired by F-15E jet fighters to destroy Houthi or Iranian drones. The system is much cheaper than Sidewinder and AMRAAM missile air-to-air missiles.

A photo of an F-15E equipped with the rocket pods were recently posted by the US Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East.

The Senate armed services committee is looking into ramping up production of components for the counter-drone system, including through the current reconciliation bill, a congressional aide said.

The Wall Street Journal