The drones, made by the company Hexagon, were not part of the US Department of Defense’s so-called Future Defense Program. This suggests that the United States has always had the strategy of using the Ukraine war as a laboratory.
US Navy Vice Admiral Robert Sharpe, the former head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, said publicly at the time that the US had also trained a European “military partner” on the drones.
“What it does (surveillance drones) is it allows you to gather geospatial information about the area around you from hiding under the clouds,” Sharpe told CNN on the sidelines of a satellite conference in Denver last spring.
According to CNN, a section of US officials tried very well to use the drone in the war in Ukraine. However, it is not yet clear whether they were ultimately used on the battlefield.
Multiple intelligence and military officials told CNN that knowledge gained from the Ukraine war will now lead defense contractors to focus more on developing weapons such as cheap single-use drones.