Ukraine’s drones still run on Chinese parts.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s drone makers still depend on electronics from China, a Russian ally, the Associated Press reported. Magnets, motors, chips, thermal sensors and battery cells largely come from there, a dozen manufacturers said. Oleksandr Yakovenko of TAF Industries told the wire that switching entirely to Western alternatives could raise costs by as much as 60 percent and cut production by a similar amount.

Ukraine Customs data, cited by the Associated Press, put China’s direct share of imported drone parts at nearly 90 percent at the start of 2024 and at 28 percent in the first eight months of 2026. The drop is not the whole story. Parts recorded as Polish or Czech often were made in China and routed through those countries, the wire reported. Ukraine can assemble batteries. It still imports the cells.

Switching to Western parts could raise the cost by 60 percent and cut production by as much.

The photograph shows a Ukrainian soldier kneeling in a field, hands on a small drone. It is a crew preparing a machine, not a shelf of Chinese components, and not the Kyiv apartment hit overnight. The Technology desk files the parts. The strike is on the war page.