Not all the weapons used by the Ukrainian Defense Forces are public, even if some of the secret items were supplied from the West. Another example of this is the American V-BAT reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle from Shield AI.
An unspecified number of these scout drones were sent to Ukraine, as disclosed by Shield AI co-founder Brandon Tseng in an interview with Defense One. Tseng says the purpose of the experiment was to test the drones against electromagnetic warfare effects under real war conditions. The first batch was delivered to Ukraine in June alongside the American developers themselves.
Read more: Ukrainian Army Creates Experimental Units to Test Innovative EW Systems
He also mentioned a combat episode where these drones, handled by Ukrainian special forces, were launched to identify enemy targets — judging by the description, it happened in the occupied part of the Kherson region, southern Ukraine. That time, a V-BAT took off 40 km from the frontline yet flew 100 km deep in the rear of russian positions. This operational endurance allowed the soldiers to detect a warehouse with missiles for the Buk air defense systems and destroy it with a HIMARS rocket strike.
Defense One also added a report from a Ukrainian military research institute dealing with weapons testing. The contents of the document are almost completely censored but there is a photo of the V-BAT in Ukraine and evidence confirming the stable operation of this UAV under electromagnetic suppression.
On a note from Defense Express, the announced capabilities of the V-BAT are:
- weight: 56.5 kg, incl. payload of 11 kg,
- endurance: 10 hours of continuous flight.
The reconnaissance capabilities of the drone are provided by a powerful electro-optical station with a high-sensitivity MWIR thermal imaging sensor. Target detection and recognition are powered by artificial intelligence. And the main feature is a vertical takeoff and landing on a 4x4 meter platform. That is despite the drone having only one rotor with blades enclosed in a fenestron.
But there is one particular phrase by Brandon Tseng worth extra attention: "There were skeptics on the NATO side, on the American side, that were like, ‘You know, no one's passed this testing. All drones fail here; you guys are going to be like everybody else'," as delivered.
This phrase clearly says that such non-public tests of American weapons in Ukraine are not exceptions. And, of course, both parties are interested in such experiments because Ukraine gets the opportunity to use the latest weapons, while Western manufacturers get to test their solutions on an actual battlefield.
Currently, the V-BAT is nothing but one of competitors of the Pentagon's program called FTUAS (Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System) which aims to find a replacement for the Textron RQ-7 Shadow reconnaissance UAV. From the U.S. Department of Defense' perspective, the V-BAT, offered by Shield AI and Northrop Grumman, is just one of many options rivaling other solutions from Textron Systems, L3Harris Technologies, and Arcturus UAV.
Against this background, chances are high that the offers from all these other competitors will be tested in Ukraine, too. By the way, the Pentagon should announce its final choice in 2025, and the winner of the FTUAS competition will enter the army in 2026. This could explain why Shield AI decided to reveal it now.
Read more: Ukrainian Company Presents Advanced Interceptor Drone Set to Neutralize russian Reconnaissance Threats
