US is redirecting critical antidrone technology From Ukraine to US forces

The Pentagon quietly notified Congress last week that special fuzes for ground-based rockets that Ukraine uses to shoot down Russian drones are now being allocated to U.S. Air Force units in the Middle East.

The move comes as President Trump said Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him in a phone call that Moscow would have to respond forcefully to recent Ukrainian attacks, dampening the prospects for a halt in the war that began in early 2022.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth skipped a meeting Wednesday at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters with European defense ministers on coordinating military aid to Ukraine.

Hegseth has warned that European allies must provide the overwhelming share of future military assistance to Kyiv while casting the western Pacific as the Pentagon’s “priority theater."

The defense chief went further in an internal memo last month. In it, he authorized the Pentagon’s Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, a Pentagon office that seeks to ensure that U.S. military commanders’ urgent needs for weapons and logistics are met, to provide the fuzes to the U.S. Air Force, even though they were initially bought for Ukraine.

The Pentagon told the Senate Armed Services Committee in the previously undisclosed message that the U.S. military’s need for the fuzes was a “Secretary of Defense Identified Urgent Issue." The Pentagon declined requests for comment.

The decision to redirect the component illustrates the scarcity of key defense items as Ukraine steels itself for more Russian drone and missile attacks, while U.S. Air Force units in the Middle East prepare for a possible conflict with Iran or renewed fighting with Houthi militants in Yemen.

Supporters of the move say the Pentagon has the flexibility to take such an action under the emergency military spending bill passed last year. But the move had prompted concerns among Ukraine’s supporters in Congress, who say that the Pentagon hasn’t explained what effect the move would have on Ukrainian defenses or whether the Air Force need is urgent.

The Biden administration arranged to send the fuzes along with numerous other weapons systems under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which authorized the spending of billions of dollars in U.S. government funds to buy weapons and components from American defense firms.

Though the funds for the program have been expended, deliveries are scheduled to reach Ukraine this year and next unless the Trump administration diverts more systems to fill the U.S. military’s inventories.

The Trump administration inherited the authority to send Ukraine up to $3.85 billion in weapons from Pentagon’s stocks but refrained from doing so. It hasn’t asked for more funding for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

The fuzes are intended for the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, a ground-to-air laser-guided rocket for defending against drones. The Pentagon has touted the effectiveness of the rockets. A critical component is the “proximity fuze," which detonates explosives when the rocket nears a drone.

The Air Force has adapted the rockets so that it can be fired by F-15E jet fighter to destroy Houthi or Iranian drones. The system is much cheaper than Sidewinder and AMRAAM missile air-to-air missiles. A photo of an F-15E equipped with the rocket pods were recently posted by the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is looking into ramping up production of components for the counterdrone system, including through the current reconciliation bill, a congressional aide said.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com