Factory to front lines: A Western spy drone’s journey to war in Ukraine

Ukrainian soldiers prepare a Western surveillance drone for launch in southeastern Ukraine. Jake Epstein/Business Insider

SOUTHEASTERN UKRAINE — Two soldiers emerged from the tree line carrying the drone, trying to avoid scraping its wings against the branches. They placed it on the launch rail, angled toward the open sky above a field of budding sunflowers.

The drone sprang to life, its small, rear-facing propeller roaring like a lawnmower. Sporadic raindrops pitter-pattered on the aircraft as the Ukrainian operators waited for their launch window.

Then, at the press of a button, the drone shot into the gray sky for its final test flight before deployment to the front lines — where it would be sent to hunt.

Drones have radically transformed the war in Ukraine. To capture how uncrewed aircraft are reshaping combat and how lessons from the fight are changing the way companies build these weapons, Business Insider followed a Western-made AR3 surveillance drone from its factory in Wales to the battlefield in southeastern Ukraine, where soldiers from the 15th Artillery Reconnaissance "Black Forest" Brigade readied it for front-line operations.

Its journey from production to the front underscores one of the central dynamics defining both the conflict and Western military and industrial planning . Ukraine still needs foreign aircraft to sustain its fight, while Western manufacturers need Ukrainian combat experience to keep those aircraft relevant against evolving Russian defenses . There's a deeper lesson in the manufacturing-and-feedback loop as NATO braces for its own potential fight.

Sarmat, a platoon commander in the Black Forest Brigade who requested to be identified only by his call sign for security reasons, said that although Ukraine can produce millions of drones each year, its forces still need more aircraft and combat capability than the country can supply on its own.

Tekever's AR3 drones travel nearly 2,000 miles to reach the front lines in Ukraine. Jake Epstein/Business Insider

With Western-supplied drones, he said, "we have the opportunity to fly more, to detect more, and to be much more successful."

A factory on the Welsh coast

At a private airfield on the Welsh coast, factory workers assemble AR3 drones inside one of several manufacturing sites in Britain that are operated by the Portuguese defense company Tekever .

The long World War II -era runway and private airspace around the quaint town of Cardigan make it an ideal location for flight testing.

Many of the drones produced here will soon embark on a nearly 2,000-mile journey east to Ukraine.

Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Tekever made reconnaissance drones for governments and commercial clients to monitor illegal fishing and migration at sea. Now, the company is increasingly producing uncrewed aircraft for Ukraine.

At the start of the war, Ukraine relied heavily on Western military assistance to fend off Russia's invasion forces. Kyiv also invested heavily in its own drone industry to gain a technological advantage over a much larger military. Hundreds of Ukrainian companies now produce millions of aircraft annually, including strike and reconnaissance drones .

That growth has reduced Ukraine's dependence on foreign suppliers for some types of drones, but it has not eliminated it. Longer-range reconnaissance aircraft such as the AR3 can fly deeper and stay aloft longer than many of the smaller, cheaper drones that Ukraine produces in vast numbers. These tools give commanders a key way to locate valuable Russian targets beyond the immediate front.

Ukrainian drone production and battlefield tactics are also shaping Western military planning and training. Top NATO officials have said they are absorbing many lessons from the conflict , including how quickly drone designs and countermeasures become obsolete.

Western support is "extremely important to Ukraine," said Scott McClelland, the deputy director of Tekever's defense unit. "This ultimately comes down to wider European security."

The UK is one of the largest suppliers of military aid and security assistance to Ukraine. It has committed more than $21 billion in military support since 2022, including 150,000 strike, reconnaissance, and logistics drones this year. Tekever's AR3, the specific cost of which the company declined to provide, is among the systems supplied through that support, along with drones from British drone makers Windracers and Malloy Aeronautics.

Sarmat's unit received its first AR3 in early 2024 and learned to operate the aircraft from Tekever. But the conversation doesn't end there.

AR3 drones are prepared for shipment at the factory in Wales. Jake Epstein/Business Insider

Tekever maintains a secure hotline around the clock to answer questions from Ukrainian operators. The soldiers, in turn, test new technology in combat and tell the company what needs to change to make the drone more effective.

Exchanges like these between troops and industry have given rise to an accelerated development cycle driven by the brutal demands of modern warfare. A drone that works against Russian defenses today may struggle once Russia changes its jamming, detection, or interception tactics. Manufacturers must then modify the aircraft before the advantage disappears.

McClelland said that the feedback from Ukraine allows Tekever to continually upgrade the drone. For instance, after the Black Forest Brigade requested a change to the AR3's climb rate, the company modified the engine.

"The operating environment in Ukraine has really required us to respond at a speed that is almost alien to traditional Western procurement," McClelland said.

Western militaries might spend years bringing a new product to life and putting it into service with the armed forces. For Ukraine, that would be "far, far too late," he said. Technology developed on that timeline could be "completely redundant" by the time it reached the battlef...

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