On large stretches of the battlefield in Ukraine, drones now matter more than tanks. Small, fast, relatively cheap and endlessly adaptable, they are used for surveillance, targeting and direct attack. Ukrainian officials estimate that drones account for the majority of recent casualties on both sides. As their role has expanded, so has the race to secure the parts that make them work.
That race does not run through Washington or Brussels. It runs through industrial parks in southern China.
From motors and sensors to cameras, processors and flight controllers, the components that determine how far a drone can fly and how clearly it can see are overwhelmingly made in China. Both Russia and Ukraine now depend on the same suppliers, often the same factories, and sometimes the same production lines, the Financial Times reported.
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