2026年9月22日 / 美国东部时间晚上8:44 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
基辅电——据三位知情人士透露，乌克兰已准备好与美国签署一项具有里程碑意义的无人机防御协议。
乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基准备于本周在纽约举行的联合国大会间隙签署该协议，但消息人士称，协议也可能推迟至美国准备就绪后再最终敲定。
过去一年来，美国国防部与其乌克兰 counterpart 已制定了一项框架，允许两国军方扩大乌克兰国防技术在美国的测试和生产。
在与伊朗的冲突期间，美国及其盟友愈发认识到与乌克兰国防工业建立伙伴关系的重要性。冲突爆发初期，伊朗就开始用“沙赫德”单向攻击无人机袭击美国在中东各地的军事设施——俄罗斯也曾用同款无人机攻击乌克兰城市。由于美国和海湾国家最初缺乏经济实惠的无人机拦截手段，基辅派出了无人机拦截机和飞行员提供协助。
此后，乌克兰已与沙特阿拉伯、卡塔尔、阿联酋等多国签署了国防协议。这些协议将外国融资与乌克兰蓬勃发展的国防制造业相结合。泽连斯基曾表示，乌克兰今年的目标是生产1000万架无人机。相比之下，美国陆军2025年采购了约5万架，前陆军部长丹·德里斯科尔称。
但专家表示，美国及其盟友学到的最重要经验是，乌克兰的优势不仅在于无人机本身，还在于不断对其进行改进的软件、操作人员和团队。
“有一种误解认为，只要购买了技术，就能自动发挥作用。西方国家真正需要更好地理解的是，这不仅仅是拥有技术的问题，而是技术的使用方式。这正是乌克兰的知识、技能和经验真正需要与之一同传递的地方，”投资乌克兰国防技术的美国风险投资公司绿旗资本的创始合伙人黛博拉·费尔兰布在接受哥伦比亚广播公司新闻采访时表示。“这不像你只是拿起步枪瞄准射击那么简单。”
此前未被报道的伊朗冲突初期细节，展现了这一挑战。
今年3月，伊朗开始报复美以联合空袭，时任陆军部长德里斯科尔致电谷歌前执行官埃里克·施密特，后者如今创立了在美国无人机领域活跃于乌克兰的Perennial Autonomy公司。Perennial Autonomy生产名为“蜂虎”的拦截无人机，是对抗俄罗斯用于攻击乌克兰的伊朗设计“沙赫德”无人机的最有效手段之一。德里斯科尔要求施密特向中东地区提供1.3万架“蜂虎”拦截无人机和1万架“大黄蜂”侦察打击无人机。
施密特同意了，无人机在数天内就被运往美军，但由于乌克兰零部件到货延迟，这些无人机花了数周时间才投入使用，多位熟悉这批货物的消息人士称。Perennial Autonomy的“蜂虎”无人机使用乌克兰国防通信公司Sine Engineering制造的AI信标，以及携带爆炸物的乌克兰战斗部。在将无人机集成到美国防空雷达系统以投入实战前，还需要乌克兰专业技术人员的支持。
哥伦比亚广播公司已联系白宫和五角大楼，就乌克兰技术用于保卫中东基地以及与乌克兰的无人机协议进展置评。
近几个月来，华盛顿吸取乌克兰无人机战经验的努力进展不均。今年8月，美国陆军撤销了一个负责研究乌克兰无人机战经验教训的无人机营。该单位的两位主要支持者——前陆军参谋长兰迪·乔治将军和前美国陆军欧洲和非洲司令部司令克里斯托弗·多纳休将军，均在今年早些时候被解职或被迫提前退休。
但五角大楼也在采取措施扩大美国自己的无人机库。美国“无人机主导计划”已邀请美国和部分外国公司——主要是乌克兰公司——竞争美军的无人机合同。该计划希望到2027年采购超过20万架无人机。
乌克兰最大的无人机制造商之一Skyfall今年早些时候赢得了该计划的首个“挑战赛”。Perennial Autonomy和另一家在乌克兰实地开展业务的美国制造商Neros赢得了第二场挑战赛。
直接了解无人机协议的消息人士表示，该协议的内容将不只是向少数乌克兰公司授予合同。相反，它将建立一个更广泛的框架，让乌克兰主要国防企业直接与美国同行及美军开展合作。
驻乌克兰的美国风险投资家费尔兰布表示，该协议的价值将取决于其能否在转让技术的同时，同步传递乌克兰的作战专业知识。
“无论用于进攻还是防御，在战场上使用无人机都需要大量的协调、作战规划、对环境的理解以及无人机操作人员之间的沟通，”她说。“在使用无人机的同时，还有一整套并行发生的流程被人们忽视了——但这正是乌克兰人对无人机使用方式的理解中不可或缺的部分。”
Ukraine ready to sign landmark drone defense deal with U.S., sources say, amid new details on Kyiv’s role in Iran war
September 22, 2026 / 8:44 PM EDT / CBS News
Kyiv— Ukraine is ready to sign a landmark drone defense deal with the United States, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is prepared to sign the deal on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York City, but the sources said the deal may instead be finalized at a later date, when the U.S. is ready to sign.
Over the past year, the Department of Defense and its Ukrainian counterpart have developed a framework that would allow the two countries’ militaries to expand testing and production of Ukrainian defense technology in the U.S.
The importance of expanding partnerships with Ukraine’s defense industry has become increasingly clear to the U.S. and its allies throughout the war with Iran. During the first days of the war, Iran began targeting American military installations across the Middle East with Shahed one-way attack drones — the same type of drones Russia has used to attack Ukraine’s cities. As the U.S. and the Gulf states initially lacked cost-effective means to intercept the drones, Kyiv sent drone interceptors and pilots to help.
Ukraine has since signed defense agreements with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries. The agreements match foreign financing with Ukraine’s burgeoning defense manufacturing industry. Zelenskyy has said Ukraine aims to make 10 million drones this year. By comparison, the U.S. Army acquired roughly 50,000 in 2025, according to former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.
But experts say the most important lesson for the U.S. and its allies is that Ukraine’s advantage lies not only in the drones themselves, but in the software, operators and teams constantly adapting them.
“There is a sort of a misconception that you just buy the tech and somehow it’s going to work. Really what the West needs to start understanding better is that it’s not just about having the tech. It’s about how the tech is used. And this is where Ukraine’s knowledge, skills, experience really need to be transmitted along with it,” Deborah Fairlamb, founding partner of Green Flag Ventures, an American venture capital firm that invests in Ukrainian defense technology, told CBS News. “It’s not just like it’s a rifle that you just point and shoot.”
Previously unreported details from the opening days of the Iran war illustrate that challenge.
In March, as Iran began to retaliate against joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, then-Army Secretary Driscoll called Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, who has since founded Perennial Autonomy, a U.S. drone company active in Ukraine. Perennial Autonomy manufactures an interceptor drone known as Merops, which is among the most effective means of countering the Iranian-designed Shahed drones Russia uses against Ukraine. Driscoll asked Schmidt to supply 13,000 Merops interceptor drones and 10,000 Bumblebee reconnaissance and strike drones to the Middle East.
Schmidt agreed and the drones were sent to the U.S. military within days, but it would take weeks before they were operational because of Ukrainian components that arrived late, according to multiple sources familiar with the shipments. Perennial Autonomy’s Merops drones use AI beacons manufactured by Sine Engineering, a Ukrainian defense communications company, and Ukrainian warheads that carry the drones’ explosive material. Ukrainian expertise was also needed to integrate the drones into U.S. air defense radars before they could be used in combat.
CBS News has reached out to the White House and the Pentagon for comment on the use of Ukrainian technology to defend bases in the Middle East and the status of the drone deal with Ukraine.
In recent months, Washington’s efforts to absorb the lessons from Ukraine’s drone warfare have been uneven. In August, the U.S. Army phased out a drone battalion tasked with studying lessons on Ukraine’s drone warfare. Two of the unit’s prominent backers, former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and the former commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, Gen. Christopher Donahue, were both ousted or forced to retire early this year.
But the Pentagon has also taken steps toward expanding America’s own drone arsenal. The U.S. Drone Dominance Program has invited American and select foreign companies — primarily Ukrainian ones — to compete for drone contracts from the U.S. military. The program hopes to purchase more than 200,000 drones by 2027.
Skyfall, one of Ukraine’s largest drone manufacturers, won the program’s first “gauntlet” earlier this year. Perennial Autonomy and Neros — another American manufacturer with a presence on the ground in Ukraine — won the second.
Sources with direct knowledge of the drone deal say it would go beyond awarding contracts to a handful of Ukrainian companies. Instead, it would create a broader framework for leading Ukrainian defense firms to work directly with American counterparts and the U.S. military.
Fairlamb, the Ukraine-based American venture capitalist, said the deal’s value will hinge on its ability to transfer Ukraine’s operational know-how alongside its technology.
“So much of what goes into utilizing drones on a battlefield, whether offensive or defensive, really takes an enormous amount of coordination, operational planning, understanding the environment, communication between drone operators,” she said. “There’s a whole chain of events that happen in parallel with the utilization of drones that people are sort of overlooking — but that is utterly intrinsic to the Ukrainians’ understanding of how they’re using drones.”