Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
TechRadar
TechRadar
Efosa Udinmwen

Ex-Google CEO is key to Ukraine's most formidable drone weapon to date - $5000 Hornet can carry 5Kg of explosives on a 200Km, one-way trip

Google Eric Schmidt Drone Ukraine Economics
Soldiers prepare a CUAS known as Merops during a demonstration in Poland, Nov. 18, 2025.
  • A $5,000 Hornet gives Ukraine long-range strike power for minimal cost.
  • Swarms of cheap drones shift defense economics and overwhelm expensive interceptors.
  • Schmidt applied software-era scaling to hardware, enabling rapid, disposable drone production.

A former Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, has quietly become the essential link between Silicon Valley thinking and Ukraine’s most lethal unmanned strike asset.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
The 'World's Oldest' Bartender's Very Illegal Basement Bar
A recent profile of 103-year-old Irv Koch's basement bar highlights all the ways that modern zoning codes crush novel and fun third places.
Reason
Reason
Harry Potter and Cursed Child director pushed back on making play shorter: ‘I was dragged kicking and screaming’
Play, which originally opened in 2016 as two parts, has been condensed into one production
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Smokers have a lower risk of Parkinson’s – we may have found out why
Smoking is one of the biggest causes of ill health and early death. Yet smokers seem to have a lower risk of developing Parkinson’s disease than non-smokers – by around half according to some studies.
The Conversation
The Conversation
NY Woman finds stolen Tamayo painting in trash; Sotheby’s sells it for $1.049 million
In 2003, Elizabeth Gibson found a brightly coloured painting in the rubbish on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She later discovered it was Rufino Tamayo’s 1970 work “Tres Personajes”, stolen from a Houston couple in 1987. Sotheby’s planned to auction it for up to $1 million.
The Times of India
The Times of India
Jaden Newman Leaked Video Controversy: Viral Post Claims LaMelo Ball Paid Her $250K for One Encounter
A viral post claimed LaMelo Ball paid Jaden Newman $250,000 after seeing a private video, but no reliable evidence supports the alleged payment, encounter or quote.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
His Wife Says Decades of Sleep Talking Nearly Went Quiet After Hypnosis Gave Her a One-Word Cue
A man's decades-long sleep talking faded after hypnosis gave his wife a librarian's "Shhhh" as a cue, a case report says. Here's what it shows.
Medical Daily
Medical Daily
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play