Ukraine’s Trembita attack drone isn’t much to look at. Seven feet long with a brute-simple layout—engine on top, rocket booster in the back—it’s effectively a smaller version of Nazi Germany’s World War II V-1 buzz bomb, albeit with modern GPS guidance.

But Trembita and other locally made drones are, alongside front-line manpower, the key to Ukraine’s survival and potential victory as the United States under President Donald Trump turns from close ally to, at best, Russia-friendly irritant. At worst, the Trump administration risks actively siding with autocratic Russia in the latter’s three-year wider war on democratic Ukraine.

With support from its European allies, Ukraine can fight on without U.S. help—especially now that Ukrainian industry is building many of the Ukrainian military’s most important weapons. Wisely, Ukrainian firm Pars focused on keeping the 100-mile-range, 250-mile-per-hour Trembita cheap: reportedly just a few thousand dollars apiece.

“We use simple technologies, such as aluminum cutting and bending, actually repeating the design of World War II aircraft,” Pars CEO Akim Klemenov told Militarnyi at a recent technology conference in Kyiv. “This allows us to significantly reduce the cost of the product.”

“The missile is built around a pulsating jet engine, which consists of stainless steel and no moving parts,” Klemenov added. “It is cheap and simple. Yes, it has some disadvantages”—middling range and accuracy—“but its advantages are worth it.”

The ramp-launched Trembita is still in testing after around 18 months of development, but once it’s finally ready for action, the idea would be for Kyiv to buy the type by the thousands using its own funds, European funds and whatever is left over from the money the previous U.S. administration sent to Ukraine.

Some Trembitas would carry warheads. Others would be decoys with extra fuel and range. Launched dozens at a time by mobile teams, the decoy Trembitas would distract and exhaust Russian air defenses, allowing the explosive Trembitas to slip through and strike their targets.

“We want them to see and shoot at these missiles,” one of the drone’s developers told Euromaidan Press. “That benefits Ukraine.”

The Trembita isn’t Ukraine’s farthest-flying drone—that honorific apparently belongs to the country’s modified Aeroprakt A-22 sport plane bomber with its approximately 1,000-mile reach. But the modern buzz bomb might represent the best balance of range, destructive potential and cost. All Russian troops, supply lines, air bases and air defense batteries within 100 miles of the front line would be at risk of massive, repeated Trembita raids.

“Mass” is a watchword of Ukrainian drone development as Kyiv becomes the world’s leading robotic power. Ukrainian developers are working on control methods that, carefully leveraging A.I., allow small teams to operate large swarms of drones.

In that way, Ukraine can make most efficient use of its rarest and most precious resource—people—while scaling up use of its most abundant and increasingly affordable resource: drones. “We already have about 10 companies working on this,” Mykhailo Fedorov, the head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, said at the Kyiv confab.

Drones are already Ukraine’s best weapons. “Since 2024, the vast majority of front-line losses are inflicted by drones, which are produced domestically using locally manufactured or imported components, often from countries like China,” explained Tatarigami, founder of the Ukrainian Frontelligence Insight analysis group.

And they’re becoming more important by the day as Ukraine fights increasingly alone, but with increasing efficiency.