A General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle.(Photo Credit: U.S. Army)
The US wants to sell Ukraine four General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle combat drones for battlefield use against Russia, Reuters reported on June 2, citing sources familiar with the plan.
One of the source, a US official, told the news agency that the administration of President Joe Biden intends to notify the Congress of the potential drone deal with Ukraine in the upcoming few days. A public announcement will be made after that.
The drone deal will be funded with money from the $40 billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative that was recently approved by the Congress.
Despite the ongoing preparations for the deal, a source told Reuters it could still be blocked by Congress. The source said that there is a risk of a “last minute policy reversal”.
The MQ-1C Gray Eagle is more capable than the Turkish-made Baykar Bayraktar TB2 currently in service with Kiev forces. The Gray Eagle has an endurance of more than 30 hours, while the TB2 can stay in the air for around 24 hours only.
The General Atomics-made combat drone can be also armed with up to eight AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, which have a range of up to eight kilometers and an eight kg warhead.
According to Reuters, the Gray Eagle drones which will be sold to Ukraine will be armed with Hellfire missiles. A US official told the news agency that this will be done via a future Presidential Drawdown Authority once training on the drones has been completed.
A General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. (Photo Credit: U.S. Army)
Training on the Gray Eagle usually takes months. However, the US is hoping that the process can be done in weeks by training Ukrainian service members with experience in drone operation.
While the Gray Eagle is a very capable combat drone, it will not likely be effective in the face of the Russian military that has already shot down dozens of Ukrainian TB2 drones. The Gray Eagle is larger than the TB2, which could make its detection and interception even easier for Russian warplanes and air defense means. If used for combat missions over heated areas, the US-made drones will not likely survive for long in Ukraine.
The US has been stepping up its military support for Ukraine on the hopes of thwarting Russia’s ongoing special military operation in the country. Very recently, Washington announced that it will supply four M142 HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System] launchers with guided rockets to Kiev forces.
A derribarlos solo levanten vuelo o destruirlos en tierra de inmediato
It looks like a Vietnam or Afghanistan for Russia. Putin really fell for this one. Thousands of Russian troops are already dead. Only God knows how many more will die before the war rounds up. Sanctions costing Russia billions and situations in Syria just got more complicated. NATO is likely to expand further right up to Russia’s borders. Anti-Russian sentiments grew exponentially worldwide. The longer this war, the more divided Russians get and the more United Ukrainians get. With the pathetic performance of Russia’s over-hyped weapons in Ukraine, its military has lost much of the deterrence it achieved due to propaganda in the Syrian war. If not for nukes, Russia’s military is a joke. Couldn’t defeat Ukraine after months of fighting.
Butthurt moron you are replying to a bot LOL you blind and braindead Turdbot from Erdogans harem. Pathetic shitty Turds can’t even defeat bunch of weak Kurdish militia but keep spamming your delusional idiotic gibberish you jihadist loving gay monkey.
I got to say your got quite an awesome imagination, is this for a fiction novel for a James bond like movie, If not you should write for CNN, BBC your perfect for there BS campaign, lol
How many wars did America win ? Only 1 that was the civilian war between North and South America. The only wars America win is in Hollywood hahahahaha
Americans seem to love military pornographic names to their weapon systems. Likely names like “Hellfire” make their dicks hard. Actually what really matters is how much money they’ll make, not how effective these weapons really are.
Unfortunately I can conclusively say the USA is on a path to COMPLETE FAILURE.
I predicted this based on the fact that the USA stopped using genuine people to make decisions, instead filling up all positions with CIA agents. For example in the hospitals, you can easily see this with CIA nurses who all are pretty by clueless on what to do when human lives are at risk. I ask myself how did they pass the licensing exams? The realization came to me, they do not have to pass any medical licensing exams. The CIA can pass anyone with the click of a mouse, hence have their agents as directors of hospitals and directors of nursing medicine etc.
Filling up critical areas of the US establishment with CIA agents give the CIA full control but limits the productivity of the whole system. Hence no new medical breakthroughs within the last few decades. No more real scientists or physician researchers who produce new stuff. Just the same old CIA agents masquerading as clinicians.
Same problem is occurring everywhere else. Education, engineering, even military technology. Hence the struggle the US cannot put out a hypersonic weapon despite all the “brains” available with MIT, Harvard, Yale etc.
Stop filling spots with good looking CIA morons who do not know what they are doing. Allow the good old struggle of the ordinary people who built the USA. If this process does not stop, the USA will keep falling behind everyone until it becomes a country at the level of some third world country.
Economics is a prime example with the Fake Russian Default. Everyone with a brain can tell that Russia’s so called default is fake….
Actually the Western countries just destroyed the “Default Process” No other country will ever respect it. This is an artificial default one openly caused not because the payer cannot pay but because the receiver refuses to accept the money. The fools running around thinking their words matter. It only matters when money is not available to be spent or made. Russia has so much the world needs. If Russia decides to sell Petroleum, gas, wheat, guns, fighter planes in “Toilet Paper” that toilet paper becomes valuable because it can buy those things.
The morons need to go back to Macroeconomics… they are using terms they do not even understand how it works. Comes from filling up all those IMF and World Bank offices with Pretty faces, and good looking CIA agents, instead of smart people who do not always look good!
Dude. The CIA is basically a contractor. The incompetence issue is widespread. People don’t think anymore. There’s not CIA agent behind every tree, this isn’t a James Bond movie.
Yet, the Russians are building Hypersonic weapons, Nuclear rocket motors, and many new weapons the USA does not have.
The USA has money (Global reserve currency), Harvard, Yale, MIT, access to the best scientists, yet we produce only:
1. Sanctions. 2. School shooters 3. Alternative lifestyles
Explain that to yourself since you have all the answers!
Multi-Gender studies are verry important for us in Denmark. We verry thank US and verry love them much much. Kiss.
What do you think is happening to these Harvard/MIT scientists? Arent all taking STEM jobs, why so many fails?
Impossible to be the best in all spheres, so it’s not so dramatic as you see it, but education system in the US is really bad, excepts some elite schools and universities. Mass education produces idiots and perverts, like in “Idiocracy” movie. Our liberals (pro-western parasites) are trying to copy western system to dumb our youngsters, but our minister of education said few days ago that we will reject the Bolognian standard and create new one, domestic standard.
Why would cia need nurses on their payroll for other then missions and tampering with test?
Satan ICBMs and Tos-1 would disagree.
Names of military operations and maneuvers of the Atlantic pact even more stupid. “Hellfire” is quite effective and better than “Brimstone” (the same hell theme), which can be easily mislead, because active guidance of bad quality. “Hellfire” has semi-active guidance and can be corrected by operator. Need to send some NLAWs and “Stingers” as a gift to Irish Republican Army.
Is the Panzer anti-aircraft system capable of shooting it down?
Of course. Nothing special about this drone. It’s good enough for slaughtering unarmed civilians in Afghanistan but not against opponents with air defense.
Panzer = german tank
Pantsir = russian anti aircraft sistem
And just to confuse things further FlakPanzer is a German anti-air tank. But yes, Pantsir is the Russian anti-air you are likely thinking of.
Meaning is the same. German word panzer stands for armor, pantsir is body armor of cuirassiers or bone plates of a turtle. It’s armor basically, both variants of the word can be used without losing the sense.
Russia should pre-emptively start downing U.S. military drones anywhere near the conflict zone. If the Nato Ukrainians (Kyiv-Nato Axis) set up a command and control centre for the armed drones outside of Ukraine that then dramatically escalates the conflict.
They have already started doing this. The problem with this conflict is that it will escalate proportionally to Russian needs to fulfill their objective to provide peace for the people of Dombas. That means that if progress is still on plan to be achieved that objective, even if hampered in terms of timeline by western weapons, then all will be well. However, it also means that Russia will increasingly directly engage NATO should the west go too far and starts to make the Russian plan look off course. Basically Russia will do anything, quite correctly to achieve its goals and objectives against the Ukrainian Nazis, and will engage whoever and whatever it takes, to get the job done!
US are MOTHERFUCKER they can put them is their ass
Russia will increasingly get the opportunity to face more and more up to date western military systems, systems they must have planned for, and now meet in theatre. The net result is the uncertainty of engagement with the US and NATO is dropping each time a western system is deployed directly against Russian forces. The key performance indicator in this scenario will be territorial gains. At the moment the gains are good – now up to 20% of Ukraine and increasing daily. If Russia can just keep grinding away against all comers on the field with continual gains. Then it will have readied itself for a full scale out, to take on NATO conventionally in order to roll back to 1997 borders. Indeed NATO’s navy would not do well against hypersonics and we await their air force for ‘testing’. Russia’s military strategy seems to be reduce everything to fighting on the battlefield by limiting aviation’s ability to operate on both sides.
Iran has already reversed engineered the hellfire missiles, and I’m not sure if Russia did as well. If Russia didn’t, Iran will help Russia. Hellfire Will fail, Russia will shoot down this drone, and Iran and Russia will have a new project
Inshallah
“Hermes” is better. There was information about new “Klevok” hyper-sonic anti-tank complex, so it’s even better than “Hermes”.
Most of these weapons do not survive electronic warfare, let alone kinetic. This is P.R
They will be destroyed as easily as Baryaktars.
SF bullshit doesn’t cease to amaze me. Dozens of TB2s were shot down, yet few pictures were shared despite the intense info war between Russia and Ukraine, and despite the fact that those drones will fall close to their killers due to their short-range (easy to go and take pictures). Try harder. Your propaganda is pathetic.
Stupid Erdogan’s eunuch boy your butthurt idiocy doesn’t cease to amaze me. Most of the time not much left of TB2 when it’s hit, and why would anyone even bother to gather garbage on the frontline, risking lives and searching woods for remains of shitty Gaycraptars.
Intel Slava Z. I look on telegram, they have pix of the wreckage all the time. Every so often they give a count on all the items taken out.
US regime wouldn’t let Russia win this war and are now devicing a real escalatory move by selling US-made combat drones to Ukraine and at the same time would train Ukrainians how to operate such drones, but the factual reality is that these drones would be operated by US agents who were based around NATO countries targeting Russian army and equipments much like the way they assassinate anyone anywhere around the world. A worrying situation where US personnel are directly fighting RUAF.
Hundreds of these US-made drones will be deployed within hot combat zones remotely operated by US personnel and not by Ukrainian army as claimed by yanks that would precipitate WWIII.
In my opinion, the fact that to this day Russia is unable to prevent the influx of these western weapon into Ukraine is the reason why Russia is having so much difficulty in accomplishing its goal. I have trouble understanding why is it so difficult for Russia to stop/destroy these weapons while being delivered since it said it has total air supremacy. Why is Ukraine still able to fly planes, drones, helicopters?
When the Grey Eagles are in UA airspace, they will be shot down. They are big target for S400.
*Gay Eagles
The Objective is an idiot or troll! NATO is already up to Russia’s door step? Hence the situation you imbecile.
Brothers and sisters – I seriously think West and Nato is about to create hell on earth. Looks like everything was planned and sadly ordinary people will have to suffer again because of war mongers and banksters.
Need to send captured english weapons to IRA, Northern Ireland should return to homeland.