Ukraine's drone strikes depend heavily on US tech like Starlink that it doesn't control. Its officers are worried.

A Ukrainian service member uses a Starlink-connected tablet to communicate with fellow soldiers and pilot a drone.

Heidi Levine for The Washington Post via Getty Images Ukraine's drone campaigns increasingly rely on US technology that it does not fully control.

Starlink, AI technologies from Palantir, and US-made Hornet drones play roles in its strikes.

Ukrainian officers worry political or corporate decisions could suddenly weaken that edge.

Long-range Ukrainian strike drones have brought Russian President Vladimir Putin's war home and are increasingly affecting the everyday lives of millions of his own people.

In Moscow, cars line up for hundreds of meters at gas stations as fuel has become scarce .

In illegally annexed Crimea, electricity disruptions have left residents without power for days.

And across Russia, logistics warehouses belonging to Wildberries and Ozon, the country's largest online retailers, have been destroyed, causing tremendous revenue losses for thousands of merchants and delivery disruptions for customers.

Fires are burning across Putin's empire.

Smoke rises above residential buildings from a warehouse for a Russian e-commerce giant near Saint Petersburg after being hit by Ukrainian drones AFP via Getty Images Closer to the front lines, Ukrainian medium-range strike drones are devastating Russian logistics, severely disrupting the fuel, ammunition, and supplies Moscow needs and significantly slowing its advance.

At the heart of these effective strike campaigns is a growing dependence on a stack of US technology and American intelligence that Ukraine does not control.

Starlink internet terminals from Elon Musk's SpaceX have become the operational backbone of many Ukrainian drone missions.

The Hornet drones produced by Perennial Autonomy, the company founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt , are Ukraine's best mid-range strike drones.

And Palantir, led by CEO Alex Karp and co-founded by Peter Thiel, provides AI software that plays a major role in route planning and mission outcomes for long-range strikes.