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 .