Politics
U.S. Reveals Once-Secret Support for Ukraine’s Drone Industry
The Biden administration declassified one last piece of information about how it has helped Ukraine: an account of its once-secret support for the country’s military drone industry.
U.S. officials said on Thursday that they had made big investments that helped Ukraine start and expand its production of drones as it battled Russia’s larger and better-equipped army.
Much of the U.S. assistance to the Ukrainian military, including billions of dollars in missiles, air defense systems, tanks, artillery and training, has been announced to the public. But other support has largely gone on in the shadows.
That included helping Ukraine develop a new generation of drones and revolutionize how wars are fought, according to U.S. officials.
The innovations in Ukraine’s drone industry have been hailed as transformative, but the U.S. support has been less well understood. In addition to technical support, the U.S. has spent significant money, including $1.5 billion sent last September, to boost Ukraine’s drone production, officials said.
Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said the support had “a real strategic impact” on the war.
“We saw how UAVs were becoming increasingly central to the fight in Ukraine and will be central to all future fights,” Mr. Sullivan said in a statement on Thursday, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles.
The U.S. effort included money to support drone makers and to purchase parts. The United States also sent intelligence officials to Ukraine to help build its program, according to people who know about the effort.
In an interview this week, the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, referred indirectly to his agency’s support for the drone program in Ukraine.
“I think our intelligence support has helped the Ukrainians to defend themselves,” Mr. Burns said. “Not just in the sharing of intelligence, but support for some of the systems that have been so effective.”
The White House declassified information about Russia’s plans to attack Ukraine ahead of the invasion. During the war, officials have regularly declassified information about Iranian and North Korean arms shipments to Russia.
Mr. Sullivan said the drone effort began after the Ukrainians’ first counteroffensive in the fall of 2022 as the limits of Ukraine’s conventional capabilities became clear.
The efforts accelerated, Mr. Sullivan said, in the preparation for Ukraine’s second counteroffensive. That push, in 2023, was ultimately less successful. Ukraine did not gain as much ground as it had wanted, in part because of Russia’s use of drones.
That 2023 counteroffensive was a hard lesson, U.S. officials said. Russian drones attacked U.S.- and European-provided tanks and armored vehicles as they tried to navigate minefields.
After the counteroffensive, U.S. officials said they rapidly increased support to Ukrainian drone makers, building on Kyiv’s efforts to grow its own industry. In addition to financial aid, the Biden administration worked to build ties between American technology companies and Ukrainian drone makers.
Last fall, the Pentagon allocated $800 million to Ukraine’s drone production, which was used to purchase drone components and finance drone makers. When President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited the White House in September, President Biden said another $1.5 billion would be directed to Ukraine’s drone industry.
American officials said on Thursday that they believe the investments have made Ukraine’s drones more effective and deadly. They noted that Ukraine’s sea drones had destroyed a quarter of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and that drones deployed on the front lines had helped slow Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine.
Mr. Sullivan said the drive to build Ukraine’s drone industry had provided “invaluable lessons” that the Biden administration had started to integrate into America’s own defense industry.
The Secret Service shot and wounded an armed man on Monday afternoon just south of the White House in a burst of gunfire that also grazed a young bystander in an area packed with pedestrians, officials said.
There was no indication that the man, who was taken to a hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, was targeting anyone in the executive complex, Chris McDonald, a congressional affairs official with the Secret Service, wrote in an email to Congress after the episode.
“President Trump was not in any danger, and there is currently no known nexus between the incident and the White House,” Mr. McDonald wrote.
A motorcade with Vice President JD Vance had passed through the area — a heavily trafficked route for official vehicles, as well as people visiting the nearby Washington Monument — shortly before the confrontation took place, officials told reporters.
The condition of the armed man, who was not identified, is not known. A firearm was recovered at the scene. A 15-year-old boy who was shot was being treated for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, officials said. Matt Quinn, the deputy director of the Secret Service, told reporters that investigators think the boy was shot by the gunman, but he later appeared to hedge his earlier statement when asked again.
“We’ll let the doctors figure that out,” Mr. Quinn said during a news conference near the scene.
No law enforcement officials were injured.
The episode began around 3:30 p.m. near the intersection of 15th Street Southwest and Independence Avenue, when agents walked up to a man “who appeared to be carrying a weapon,” Mr. McDonald wrote.
As they approached, he ran off and shot at them, Mr. Quinn told reporters.
The agents fired back and then apprehended the man, he said.
The shooting took place a little more than a week after a gunman stormed a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and shot a Secret Service agent in an attack that officials said was targeting administration officials.
On Monday, President Trump was holding an event at the White House around the time of the shooting. The Secret Service ordered reporters who were on the North Lawn of the White House to go into the press briefing room.
The police blocked off a wide stretch of streets east of the Washington Monument until the start of the evening rush hour, frustrating drivers who use the major highway bridges connecting the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia over the Potomac River.
The Metropolitan Police Department had said in a social media post that its officers were on the scene and that roads in the area would be closed for several hours. The police department is further investigating, Mr. Quinn told reporters.
Dozens of law enforcement officials, as well as a substantial contingent of National Guard members in green uniforms, flooded the area after the shooting, snarling traffic and confusing tourists on a postcard-perfect spring day.
Hundreds of members of the National Guard remain stationed in Washington even after the Trump administration withdrew many of them last year. They were deployed in August following Mr. Trump’s takeover of Washington’s police department.
Politics
Civil rights groups file lawsuit seeking to block Texas law allowing cops to arrest illegal migrants
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A coalition of civil rights groups filed a new lawsuit on Monday seeking to halt parts of a Texas law that would allow police officers in the Lone Star State to arrest migrants suspected of crossing into the U.S. across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
The law is set to take effect next week after a federal appeals court vacated a lower court ruling last week that had prevented its enforcement since 2024. In that ruling, he appeals court vacated an injunction that had blocked the law, finding that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.
Senate Bill 4 established a state-level crime for entering the country illegally and authorized state magistrates to order certain individuals to leave the country if they are convicted.
Courts have long maintained that immigration enforcement has historically been treated as the responsibility of the federal government, but Texas Republicans attempted to challenge that precedent when they approved S.B. 4.
TEXAS BILL REQUIRING SHERIFFS TO COLLABORATE WITH ICE GIVEN INITIAL APPROVAL BY STATE HOUSE
Civil rights groups filed a new lawsuit to halt parts of a Texas law that would allow police officers to arrest migrants suspected of crossing into the U.S. illegally. (David Peinado/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Texas Civil Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Texas argued that the law is unconstitutional, noting that immigration law is exclusively the responsibility of the federal government and that federal law should preempt the state law.
The groups are attempting to block four provisions of S.B. 4 — the creation of a crime for re-entering the country illegally, even if a person has since obtained legal status such as a green card; granting state magistrates authority to issue deportation orders; the creation of a crime for failing to comply with a magistrate’s deportation orders; and the requirement that magistrates continue a prosecution even if a person has a pending immigration case under federal law, such as an asylum claim.
“Our fight against S.B. 4 isn’t over until justice wins,” Kate Gibson Kumar, an attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a statement. “S.B. 4 is not only unconstitutional, but a vile law that uses our Texas resources to harm communities across our state. The Texas Civil Rights Project will keep fighting to protect Texas communities from the wrath of S.B. 4.”
Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, argued that S.B. 4 is “cruel and illegal,” adding that the groups “will keep fighting it until it is permanently struck down.”
The Texas Civil Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Texas argued that the law is unconstitutional. (Getty Images)
“Every court to have reached the merits of laws like S.B. 4 has found them to be unconstitutional,” he said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
The law is scheduled to go into effect on May 15 unless another court takes action.
“S.B. 4 would transform our police and judges into immigration agents — threatening neighbors who have families here, who have lived here for years, even those who have legal status,” said Adriana Piñon, legal director at the ACLU of Texas. “Immigration enforcement is exclusively the federal government’s arena, and no state has ever claimed the power Texas threatens to wield here. We are taking this back to court to defend our Texas communities.”
TRUMP DOJ DROPS BIDEN-ERA CHALLENGE TO TEXAS BORDER SECURITY LAW
Courts have long maintained that immigration enforcement is the sole responsibility of the federal government. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Monday’s lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the Texas law, which was passed by state lawmakers amid an uptick in migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration.
Another lawsuit had been led by some of the same advocacy groups that filed Monday’s challenge. The Biden administration also initially sought to halt the law in 2024 before the Trump administration terminated the Department of Justice’s involvement in the lawsuit last year as part of the president’s mass deportation agenda.
BEIRUT — Confusion reigned on Monday over the fate of a fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran after a wave of fresh strikes on the United Arab Emirates and Oman, along with reports of attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, undermined confidence in the truce.
The drone and missile strikes, the first since a ceasefire halted fighting in early April, come after the Trump administration launched a wide-scale naval operation on Monday to “guide” stranded maritime vessels out of the vital waterway.
But fears over a return to war have driven another surge in oil prices, pushing them above $114 per barrel — levels not seen since the ceasefire nearly a month ago. Hundreds of cargo ships from dozens of countries remain stuck in the Gulf. And strikes in Dubai have raised concerns about further disruptions to international air travel at one of the world’s busiest airports.
Iran’s state-run news agency, IRNA, said the new U.S. operation was part of President Trump’s “delirium,” after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that passage through the strait required prior approval from Tehran.
“We warn that any foreign armed force, especially the invading American army, will be attacked if they attempt to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz,” said Maj. Gen. Ali Abdollahi, according to a statement reported by the Iranian state-run Mehr News Agency on Monday.
The operation, which Trump over the weekend dubbed Project Freedom, is supported by 15,000 U.S. service members and 100 aircraft, according to U.S. Central Command. Their aim is to deny Tehran control over the strait, a narrow, 21-mile-wide passageway through which a fifth of global energy supplies flows.
On Monday, Trump vowed Iran’s forces will be “blown off the face of the Earth” if they attempt to disrupt Project Freedom.
“We have more weapons and ammunition at a much higher grade than we had before,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with Fox News.
“We have the best equipment,” he continued. “We have stuff all over the world. We have these bases all over the world. They’re all stocked up with equipment. We can use all of that stuff, and we will, if we need it.”
Iran blocked traffic through the strait soon after the United States and Israel launched their campaign on the country. Last month, days after a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran came into effect, the United States enforced its own naval blockade on Iranian ports in a bid to pressure Iran to make concessions in stalled negotiations.
On Monday, Central Command said in a statement that two American-flagged merchant ships were able to successfully transit the strait, while Central Command head Adm. Brad Cooper said the U.S. military sank six Iranian boats and intercepted missiles and drones targeting civilian vessels.
“We have defeated each and every one of those threats through the clinical application of defensive munitions,” he said.
“Project Freedom is a defensive operation, and we have deployed anti-ballistic missile destroyers,” he added. “Ships in the Gulf waters belong to 87 countries, and we urge ships to cross the strait.”
IRIB, Iran’s state-run broadcaster, quoted a senior Iranian military official who denied Cooper’s claim of sunken Iranian boats. The IRGC said in a statement on the messaging app Telegram that claims of commercial vessels or tankers traversing the strait were “baseless and completely false.”
Though Cooper did not clarify if the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran was now over, a raft of attacks throughout Monday spiked fears that the war would restart, spurring sharp price increases in already-jittery energy markets.
The UAE said a fire broke out and three Indian nationals were injured in the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, a key export hub for the country, after what it described as an Iranian drone attack.
It also accused Iran of targeting a tanker linked to the country’s state oil company Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in the Strait of Hormuz, while the country’s defense ministry also reported four cruise missiles launched from Iran, saying that it intercepted three of them while the fourth fell into the sea.
“These attacks constitute a dangerous escalation and an unacceptable transgression,” said a statement from the UAE’s foreign ministry, adding that it “reserves its full and legitimate right to respond to these attacks.”
Elsewhere, two foreign workers were injured in an attack on a residential building in the Omani coastal province of Bukha, according to a statement from an unnamed security source quoted by the state-run Oman News Agency. Authorities were investigating the incident but did not elaborate on the perpetrator.
The U.K.’s Maritime Trade Operations Center reported on Monday that a commercial vessel was on fire off the coast of the UAE, while a South Korean bulk carrier ship said it suffered an explosion and a fire in its engine room and that the cause was being investigated.
Bulos reported from Beirut and Wilner from Washington.
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