Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov Brigade are helping the American defense company Perennial Autonomy, backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, test and improve a line of military drones. In particular, we are talking about the Bumblebee multi-purpose tactical drone, resistant to enemy electronic warfare.
Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov Brigade are helping the American defense company Perennial Autonomy, backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, test and improve a line of military drones. In particular, we are talking about the Bumblebee multi-purpose tactical drone, resistant to enemy electronic warfare.
It has currently passed the stage of active testing, is a finished product and costs about $1,500, writes Forbes Ukraine, citing military personnel and sources close to the American company.
The cooperation between Azov and Perennial Autonomy is based on direct contact between the brigade’s R&D departments and Schmidt’s team. According to Arsen (Lemko) Dmytryk, Chief of Staff of the 1st Corps of the Azov Naval Aviation Command, the American side provided the military with thousands of drones for tests and experiments directly on the battlefield, which allowed for rapid changes to the design and software.
The development of Bumblebee began in 2024 as a response to the fact that the Russians were actively suppressing the signals of Ukrainian UAVs at the front. The key advantages of the device were high autonomy and resistance to radio interference. Azov received the first test samples for «running-in» in February 2025, when they were still «raw», and together with the developers brought the project to serial production.
Today, Bumblebee is a versatile drone that can perform reconnaissance, logistics, and also work as a reusable bomber or kamikaze.
«This is the BMW of the drone world — just sit down and go,» says Arsen Dmytryk. According to him, the drone works right out of the box and does not require modifications in front-line workshops, and there are currently no Ukrainian analogues in terms of price-quality ratio on the market.
In parallel, the military uses another model from Perennial Autonomy — the Hornet middle strike. Its cost for the Ukrainian army ranges from $3,500 to $5,000, while domestic analogues of this class cost $30,000–35,000. In the basic version, the Hornet has a flight range of 50 km, but thanks to modifications developed by the Azov aviation wing (the cost of the improvements is estimated at $500–2,000), the drone’s range has been increased to 250 km.
