• Ukraine says it's designed four upgraded versions of the Chinese-made Mavic drone.
• It said they can conduct reconnaissance behind the front lines and resist electronic warfare.
• Ukraine's military requested the tech after China limited exports and many drones were shot down.

Ukraine says it's developed upgraded versions of the Chinese-made Mavic drone after China limited its exports.

Brave1, a Ukrainian government-supported defense innovation program, told Business Insider that three domestic developers had created drones that met NATO standards, and that Ukrainian troops were already using some on the front lines.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify the claim.

The Mavic drone, designed by DJI, one of the world's largest drone manufacturers, was created for personal and commercial use but has become one of the most widely used drones on the front lines in Ukraine.

However, Ukraine has faced supply challenges.

In December, Bloomberg reported that China was limiting the export of critical components used in Ukraine's drones, including motors, batteries, and flight controllers.

This, coupled with the drone's high loss rates — up to five Mavic drones a day in some units — prompted Ukraine to look for alternatives.

New drones for Ukraine

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, unveiled the new models in a Telegram post in December.

The four drones can carry out reconnaissance missions, Brave1 said, adding that, unlike their Chinese counterparts, the Ukrainian variants are equipped with communication systems that make them resistant to Russia's electronic warfare.

"These drones significantly enhance the situational awareness of our military, enabling them to plan more effectively and conduct operations more efficiently," it said, adding that it was "actively working on scaling up production to eventually achieve a complete replacement of Mavics."

Oleksii Kolesnyk, the founder of Reactive Drone, a Ukrainian military company that is developing one of the drones, told BI that its Shmavik drone can fly for up to 60 minutes, has an operation radius of about 9.3 miles, and can carry up to 2.2 pounds.

He said its purpose was to conduct frontline reconnaissance operations and stream live footage from the front.

Maria Korneva, a commercial director at Bravery Invest, a nonprofit, told BI that its Ukropter drone was an upgrade compared to the Mavic drone.

She said it had a heavier payload capacity of over 4 pounds, a longer flight time of up to 60 minutes, and could travel at about 46 miles per hour.

By comparison, the latest Mavic drone has a similar speed but a payload capacity half that, and a flight time of around 46 minutes, according to DJI's website.

Korneva said its Ukropter drone had been "highly" effective during trials, meeting all technical and tactical specifications, and contributed to saving Ukrainian lives in battlefield conditions.

Breaking dependency on China

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that these kinds of drones have become "absolutely vital" at this stage in the conflict.

"With the front lines stable, short-range FPV drones have become a major weapon, on par with artillery," he said.

"If Ukraine cannot get Chinese-made drones, then it needs to make its own," he added.

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Ukraine's new capability upgrade is a "good thing" for the country — assuming the claims are true.

He told BI that Ukraine's effort to reduce its dependence on China's military components is also beneficial.

However, given the Ukrainian minister's statement that some components are manufactured in Ukraine, he suspects others still come from China.

Hardie also pointed to issues around Ukraine's domestic production. "Hopefully, it can make these Ukrainian-made drones cheaply and quickly enough to keep up with demand," he said.

• An explosion at a Rheinmetall munitions factory in Spain injured six workers, local emergency services said.
• The German arms manufacturer told BI that the company saw no indication of an attack.
• Russia is suspected of being behind a plot to assassinate the CEO of Rheinmetall.

An explosion at a Rheinmetall munitions factory in Spain injured six workers on Thursday, local emergency services have said.

One person was left with serious injuries following the incident, which occurred in the southeastern Spanish city of Murcia.

Oliver Hoffmann, a spokesperson for the German arms manufacturer, told Business Insider that the cause of the explosion was still under investigation but that the company saw no indication of an attack.

Hoffmann said the site's production facilities were not damaged in the incident.

According to Spain's state register of emissions and pollutant sources, the depot's main activity is the manufacturing of explosives.

Rheinmetall has been a key military aid provider to Ukraine, supplying Kyiv with artillery ammunition, combat vehicles, tanks, and more.

Rheinmetall vehicles delivered to Ukraine include the Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 main battle tanks, the Marder and Lynx infantry fighting vehicles, and the Gepard antiaircraft tank.

The company has also helped train Ukrainian specialists in maintenance and repair tasks.

In February, Rheinmetall said it aimed to produce up to 700,000 rounds of artillery ammunition a year by 2025 at its plants in Germany, Spain, South Africa, Australia, and Hungary.

Armin Papperger, Rheinmetall's CEO, said in a March interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that the company planned to increase production capacity to 1.1 million rounds a year by 2027.

In 2024, US intelligence reportedly helped thwart a Russian plot to kill Papperger.

James Appathurai, NATO's Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Innovation, Hybrid, and Cyber, confirmed the plot at a European Parliament committee meeting earlier this week.

"What we have seen over a period of the last couple of years in particular, is incidents of sabotage taking place across NATO countries, by which I mean derailment of trains, acts of arson, attacks on politicians' property, threats to…plots to assassinate industry leaders, like publicly the head of Rheinmetall," he said.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel previously reported the Russian scheme had been spurred on by Rheinmetall's plan to establish a tank factory in Ukraine as part of a push to bolster the country's arms industry.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected the reports at the time.

Russia is believed to have been behind dozens of hybrid attacks on NATO members in recent years, including a number of incidents targeting the air freight industry.

• A passenger jet collided with a Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan Washington National Airport.
• Four crew members and 60 passengers were aboard the jet, and three were aboard the helicopter.
• President Donald Trump said there were no survivors.

Sixty-seven people are presumed dead after an American Airlines flight crashed into a military helicopter Wednesday night during the jet's final approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

President Donald Trump confirmed there had been no survivors, calling the crash "a dark and excruciating night" for the country.

American Eagle Flight 5342, operated by PSA Airlines and flying from Wichita, Kansas, was on approach to land at the airport when it struck a UH-60 Black Hawk, officials said. Several federal agencies, including the National Transportation Safety Board, are investigating the crash.

A NTSB spokesperson told Business Insider in an email on Thursday evening that the "cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder," known as black boxes, were recovered from the Bombardier CRJ700 passenger jet.

"The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation," the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, crews are still searching the waters as part of the investigation and recovery efforts, while boats remain on the scene for security and search operations, according to the DC Fire and EMS Department.

"Our divers have searched all areas that are accessible," a statement from the department read Thursday night. On Friday, the statement said, "divers will work with NTSB to conduct additional searches to locate aircraft components, to support the investigation, and begin operations to salvage the aircraft.

Three Army crewmembers were aboard the Black Hawk from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, whose identities will be withheld until their next of kin have been notified, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a Thursday morning video.

"It was a fairly experienced crew, and that was doing a required annual night evaluation," he said in the video. "They did have night vision goggles."

He said investigators deployed Wednesday night and that the 12th Aviation Battalion has an "operational pause on contingency missions" for 48 hours.

"We anticipate that the investigation will quickly be able to determine whether the aircraft was in the quarter at the right altitude at the time of the incident."

At the Thursday morning press conference, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that both aircraft had been flying in a "standard pattern" that was not unusual, with no breakdown in communication between them.

"The helicopter was aware that there was a plane in the area," he said.

Duffy added that the fuselage of the American Airlines plane was inverted in the water.

"It's been located in three different sections," he said. "It's in about waist-deep water."

A livestream taken from the Kennedy Center by EarthCam showed an explosion as the helicopter collided with the passenger plane.

A spokesperson for US Figure Skating, the country's governing body for the sport, told BI that "several members" of the organization were aboard the flight.

"These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas," the spokesperson said.

She added: "We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims' families closely in our hearts."

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said Russian nationals were aboard the flight, according to the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

At a press conference Thursday morning, Trump said he didn't know what caused the crash before laying out a series of diversity initiatives within the FAA that he suggested without evidence could have contributed to the crash.

In a video posted to the American Airlines website, CEO Robert Isom said the airline was "cooperating fully" with the NTSB's investigation of the crash.

"Anything we can do, we are doing, and right now, that means focusing on taking care of all passengers and crew involved, as well as their families," he said.

Isom said that the plane's pilot had six years of experience with PSA, and the first officer had almost two years.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was closed to all aircraft after the crash and reopened around 11 a.m.

United Airlines and Southwest Airlines said they were allowing passengers booked on flights to the airport to change their travel plans without fees.

Anthony Brickhouse, an aviation expert, told BI that the crash was tragic but that he was not surprised it happened.

"We've had so many close calls with runway incursions and commercial flights almost colliding, and when something repeats over and over again, we call that a trend," he said.

"We've been trending in this direction for two or three years now, and unfortunately, tonight, it happened," he added.

Several near misses have taken place in recent years, in cities such as Austin and New York.

But this marks the first major commercial plane crash in the US since 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed over Buffalo, New York, killing 49 on board and one person on the ground.

Kathleen Bangs, an aviation safety analyst and former pilot, told BI that she used to fly into Reagan Washington National Airport as a regional airline pilot and that the "extremely busy" airport had challenging flying conditions, including two runways of 5,000 feet and 5,200 feet, and proximity to water.

"The conversation now will be what safety steps need to be modified to ensure there's never another similar collision in the nation's capital," she said.

This was the third major plane crash worldwide since December.

An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer plane crashed last month, with some blaming Russian air defenses. Thirty-eight people died.

A few days later, a Boeing 737 operated by the South Korean carrier Jeju Air crashed in South Korea, killing 179 people. Two people survived.

• Russia's latest economic figures show it had a strong 2024.
• But economists are suspicious, believing its data don't stand up to scrutiny and is inflated.
• This week, Trump threatened high tariffs and more sanctions if Russia doesn't end the Ukraine war.

Economists are questioning Russia's latest economic data, as they say recently published and cited figures don't seem to match its real economic predicament.

During an economic meeting on Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin claimed that 2024 was a "strong year" for Russia.

He cited what he described as a manageable 1.7% deficit, and a 26% increase in non-oil and gas revenue to 25.6 trillion rubles, about $257.9 billion.

A day earlier, Russia's finance ministry released a report saying that the country's budget revenue in December was over 4 trillion rubles, or about $40 billion — a 28% increase compared to December 2023, and the highest level recorded since 2011.

However, some are growing skeptical of the data shared by Russian authorities.

On a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Elisabeth Svantesson, the finance minister of Sweden, said Putin "wants us to believe that Russia's economy is strong" and that Western sanctions aren't effective.

"But when you dig a bit deeper, you'll see that's not the case," she said, pointing to a report commissioned by the Swedish government.

That analysis, published in September by the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, found mounting imbalances and an inconsistent policy mix in the Russian economy — including massive stimulus and subsidies amid record-high interest rates.

The report also warned that official statistics like GDP growth and inflation rates were tainted by the Kremlin's propaganda machine and "manipulated to support the narrative that the Russian economy is stable."

"It's very clear that Russia's economy isn't as strong as Putin wants us to believe," Svantesson said, pointing to capital flight and nighttime satellite photos as potential evidence.

Iikka Korhonen, head of research at the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies, made a similar statement.

Korhonen said that Russia has largely stopped publishing its foreign trade data and fiscal data, in sharp contrast to before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

"Of course, Putin will put a positive spin on all pieces of data," he said.

As such, the published data may be correct, he added, "but they always leave out negative data and important context."

Economists on the MMI Telegram channel, a Russian discussion group, also highlighted a December Bank of Russia report on the country's balance of payments.

On Wednesday, the group said that Russia's fiscal surplus dropped last month to its lowest level since August 2020, at an estimated $5.6 billion.

While the Bank of Russia described the fiscal surplus as "stable," the MMI Telegram channel said $5.6 billion was not enough to cover the deficit in trade in services, repayment of foreign debt, and demand for foreign assets from citizens and businesses.

It added that the falling fiscal surplus was also piling pressure on the ruble, which fell to a two-year low against the dollar in November.

In a note on Thursday, TsMAKP, a think tank linked to the Russian government, highlighted what it said appeared to be inconsistencies and miscalculations in Russia's official economic data.

It said that while reported GDP growth of 3.8-4% in 2024 appeared strong, real production activity has stagnated since the third quarter of 2023 and investment estimates appeared inflated.

At the same time, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington DC-based think tank, has questioned Russia's finance ministry report, which said that Russia's revenue hit a record high of about $40 billion in December.

It said Russia's figures failed to account for its unsustainable defense spending, high rates of inflation, a widening deficit, and the depletion of its sovereign wealth fund.

Anders Åslund, a Swedish economist and former fellow at the Atlantic Council, said this month that Russia's financial reserves could run out before the end of the year.

Not everyone is so down on the Russian economy.

Vasily Astrov, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, acknowledged indicators showing a slowdown in Russia's GDP growth and high inflation, but said that Russia's defense spending of 6% of its GDP could be sustainable for "quite some time."

Exiled Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev wrote in November that Russia's war economy isn't in imminent danger of collapse.

And Alexander Kolyandr, a financial analyst and non-resident senior scholar at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told BI in an interview last month that with all "extraordinary" factors remaining unchanged, he didn't see any economic "collapse or meltdown" in Russia.

Even so, the US tightened sanctions against Russia earlier this month, and on Wednesday, President Donald Trump threatened high tariffs and more sanctions if it doesn't end the war.

Anders Olofsgård, a deputy director at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, said oil and gas exports are by far the most important lubricant of the Russian economy, so global prices, the discount on Russian oil, and the ability to shut down Russia's shadow fleet are key.

Right now, however, Roman Sheremeta, an associate professor of economics at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, said that Putin "needs to show that he can continue this war, that his economy is capable of sustaining the Kremlin war machine for the next 2-3 years."

Otherwise, he said, Putin's "future negotiation position will be drastically undermined."

• President Donald Trump granted Ross Ulbricht a full and unconditional pardon on Tuesday.
• Ulbricht was the founder of Silk Road, the online drug marketplace.
• He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015.

Ross Ulbricht, the founder of online drug marketplace Silk Road, received a full and unconditional pardon on Tuesday from President Donald Trump, who announced the move in a Truth Social post.

Ulbricht has been held at the US Penitentiary in Tucson since the FBI arrested him in 2013.

The FBI described Silk Road as a "digital bazaar" for illegal goods and services that buyers and sellers accessed through Tor — a network designed to conceal its users' identity and location.

The FBI said it generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, as well as more than $13 million in commissions.

In 2015, a judge sentenced Ulbricht, now 40, to life in prison for drug trafficking, computer hacking, and money laundering without the possibility of parole, ruling that Silk Road was "destructive to our social fabric."

Libertarian cause célèbre

Ulbricht has become a cause célèbre for the libertarian movement.

The Libertarian Party, which has long supported criminal justice reform and drug legalization, has continuously pushed for his release, viewing his life sentence as an example of government overreach.

In a speech at the Libertarian National Convention in May 2024, Trump pledged to commute Ulbricht's sentence on the first day of his administration if he was reelected president.

Trump said in his post on Tuesday that he granted Ulbricht's pardon in honor of Ulbricht's mother "and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly."

According to a 2015 Wired report, Ulbricht developed an interest in libertarian economic theory while at university and embraced the political philosophy of Ludwig von Mises, a staunch opponent of interventionism and advocate for the moral purpose of free-market capitalism.

In a letter he wrote to the trial judge in 2015, he said he created Silk Road not to seek financial gain but because he "believed at the time that people should have the right to buy and sell whatever they wanted so long as they weren't hurting anyone else."

"Silk Road was supposed to be about giving people the freedom to make their own choices, to pursue their own happiness," he added.

Ulbricht also said, "While I still don't think people should be denied this right, I never sought to create a site that would provide another avenue for people to feed their addictions."

However, according to the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the "vast" majority of goods sold on Silk Road were illegal drugs.

Preet Bharara, the then-US Attorney for Manhattan, said at the time that: "Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people's addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people."

Ulbricht was convicted of seven offenses after a four-week jury trial and sentenced to life in prison. He was also ordered to forfeit $183,961,921.

Trump's pardoning power

In his Truth Social post, Trump called Ulbricht's sentences "ridiculous."

In a statement on Tuesday, Angela McArdle, the Libertarian National Committee Chair, thanked Trump for following through on his promise.

"I'm proud to say that saving his life has been one of our top priorities, and that has finally paid off," she said.

"This is an incredible moment in Libertarian history," McArdle added.

On Monday, Trump also issued sweeping pardons for roughly 1,500 people related to the January 6 Capitol riot, fulfilling a campaign promise to wipe clean the records of most people connected with the riot.

• The LA wildfires could cost insurance companies $30 billion.
• A lawyer who's helped recover millions in insurance claims shared his advice for those impacted.
• He said fire victims should start their claims now, list an inventory, and set up a new address.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sean Andrade, managing partner of Andrade Gonzalez LLP, a boutique litigation firm in Los Angeles. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Insurance coverage has been our biggest practice since the inception of our firm in 2013.

We've handled all sorts of insurance coverage matters, from major environmental disasters, chemical spills, and all kinds of other property losses.

In California, we've experienced disasters and related homeowner losses in the past.

We assisted a large public entity with losses associated with the Porter Ranch gas leak in 2015. Our partner, Steve Masterson, helped provide free insurance recovery assistance to dozens of Houston residents whose homes were damaged by Tropical Storm Allison's catastrophic flooding.

I live in South Pasadena, so I'm right next to the Eaton Canyon fire. I had to evacuate my family from our house and send them down to Orange County to stay with my best friend.

This is my home and my community. I'm so thankful we didn't lose our home. But a lot of my friends did, including a lot of my children's friends and teachers.

Just hearing about the frenzy being created by the fires — and how people have been devastated in such an enormous way — breaks my heart.

Here are my tips on claiming insurance after a natural disaster like a wildfire.

Start the claim now

As part of being insured, one of the duties you have is to promptly submit your claim. If you wait, you don't want policies to expire, although many of them have an extended reporting period.

The best thing a person who is insured can do is get their claim in as soon as possible. Contact the insurance company with the address and say they were impacted.

Then, contact your broker and request a copy of your insurance policy.

List your inventory

Start preparing lists of your inventory and what you had in the house so that you can be prepared to submit a more detailed claim.

It can help to record your inventory room by room, looking at all your past purchases, looking at photos and videos on your phone, and having your friends and family members look at the photos they took inside your house.

The more information you have, the better, so you can come up with the value you believe you're entitled to.

Estimate your losses

Insurance companies' policies are very different, so the amount you're entitled to will depend on their language and limits.

If you had a Van Gogh that you never disclosed to the insurer, I can pretty much guarantee they'd challenge it and say they were never made aware of it.

Even if the insurer doesn't dispute your claims, you may be capped at whatever your personal property limit is.

Under California law, insurers should advance 30% of the property limits up to $250,000 and four months of living expenses without having people file an itemized claim.

Depending on the insurer, an advance should happen within a matter of weeks. It is usually by check, but it's up to the insured person to arrange the best way to receive the money.

Insurers are not supposed to negotiate or pay less than what is considered reasonable value. Some insurers can also get your statements under oath if they're critical of what was on your lists.

Usually, from my experience, it takes a month to 40 days to evaluate a claim and determine whether coverage will be available. Once a claim is accepted, California law states that the company has 30 days to pay out.

Set up a new address and track your expenses

Update your insurer on where your address is or could be. You obviously don't want the insurers still sending mail to the address.

If you don't know where you're going, you may want to set up a PO box.

Also keep track of any displacement expenses, such as replacing clothes and finding a new place to live.

The insurance of last resort

One of the biggest problems is that people are going to be underinsured in a lot of these areas, because many insurers have left California.

Some people moved to the California FAIR Plan, which is insurance through the state of California. By definition, it's insurance of last resort and doesn't cover anything beyond real fire loss, like theft, looting, or flooding.

One of the main questions will be: are people insured up to the value of their home?

Anyone in the Palisades area on the California FAIR Plan will be limited to the $3 million cap. If their house is worth more, the fire risk will not cover all the damage.

If parties are found culpable for the fires, some people may be able to recoup the full amount of their losses through litigation.

At least two lawsuits have already been filed against Southern California Edison, the electric company, but others could also be found liable based on their negligence.

If the suits are successful, the victims could get recoveries beyond their insurance payouts.

The insurance payouts will only pay as much as the coverage that was purchased, but the litigation will be focused on making sure people and businesses are made whole.

This means that they may be able to recover more than their property damage claims, such as personal injury damages for pain and suffering and for emotional distress.

Do not rush, and take breaks

The biggest thing is not to rush. What I've seen is that a lot of people are going through a lot of distress.

You should work on it a little bit, as much as you can per day, to the extent that you have time. If you just mentally need a break, put it down for a few days and work on it afterward. Have friends help you.

• President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day issued pardons for January 6 defendants.
• He'd pledged to grant clemency to at least some of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in 2021.
• About two-thirds of those charged with federal crimes had pleaded guilty as of January.

President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned roughly 1,500 people related to January 6-related offenses, fulfilling a campaign promise to wipe clean the records of most people connected with the Capitol riot.

"We hope they come out tonight, frankly," Trump said after signing the pardons. "They're expecting it."

Trump said he included six commutations in the pardon package so that their cases could be studied further. Among those whose sentences were commuted were the leaders of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who had been charged with seditious conspiracy. Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers' founder, was in the middle of serving an 18-year prison sentence.

Outside the commutations, Trump's pardon is sweeping in scope. It applies to "all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021."

Earlier during the day, Trump told supporters that he was asked not to include mentions of January 6 "hostages" in his official inaugural address.

"I was going to talk about the J6 hostages, but you'll be happy because, you know, it is action, not words that count," Trump said during a speech to supporters in an overflow room at the US Capitol. "And you're going to be happy, because you're going to see a lot of action on the J6 hostages."

During the presidential campaign, Trump described imprisoned January 6 defendants as "political prisoners," asserting they were "ushered in" to federal buildings by police.

Despite opposition from some prominent Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, whom the rioters targeted, Trump had said that he would pardon many of the defendants.

He made an exception for those who are "evil and bad," as he told Time in April.

After Trump won the presidential election in November, January 6 defendants started filing motions to delay their hearings in the hopes Trump would pardon them once in office.

Several Proud Boys leaders asked Trump for pardons in November, two months before he was set to take office.

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" last month, he said he would "mostly likely" pardon convicted defendants "very quickly" upon taking office. He said then, too, that there may be exceptions.

• Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday.
• Big names in business and tech attended the inauguration and other weekend celebrations.
• Here are the billionaires and CEOs who attended Trump's inaugural ceremony.

Donald Trump was sworn in as president of the United States for the second time on Monday, and key business and tech leaders were there to watch it happen — and to try to get in his good graces.

It's a shift from recent years, when Big Tech leaders and Trump appeared more at odds.

Several of them even sat on the inaugural platform, getting better seats than some of Trump's cabinet appointees.

Tesla's Elon Musk, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos were among those seated on the inaugural platform. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in contrast, reportedly watched from an overflow room.

Here are the billionaires and CEOs who attended Trump's inauguration.

Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, and X

Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO who spent hundreds of millions helping to elect Trump, attended the inauguration and spoke at an inaugural rally Monday.

Musk has been a frequent visitor to Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, since Trump was reelected.

Trump tapped Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, though Ramaswamy confirmed Monday he's leaving DOGE.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, attended the inauguration ceremony and sat on the platform.

Later on Monday, Zuckerberg posted a photo of himself and Chan dressed for an inauguration event with the caption "Optimistic and celebrating," alongside an American flag emoji.

Meta was one of the first major companies to donate $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund, and has started 2025 with a slew of changes that appear to be influenced by Trump's politics.

Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November, and was "very keen to play an active role" in the president's tech policymaking, Meta's then-global affairs chief, Nick Clegg, said at the time.

Trump was a vocal critic of Facebook in his first term and last year threatened to jail Zuckerberg if re-elected.

While Zuckerberg didn't endorse a candidate for president in 2024, he said Trump's reaction to being shot at a rally in Pennsylvania last summer was "badass."

Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, reportedly met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in December. Amazon also donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund.

Bezos said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit last month that he was "actually very optimistic" about another Trump term, and would like to help Trump with "reducing regulation"

"What I've seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time and more settled," Bezos said. "You've probably grown in the last eight years. He has, too."

Bezos didn't always feel this way about Trump.

In 2016, he said Trump's desire to lock up Hillary Clinton and his stated refusal to accept a loss in the presidential election that year "erodes our democracy around the edges."

Trump has also criticized Amazon and The Washington Post, which Bezos owns, frequently over the years.

In 2024, for the first time in decades, The Post didn't endorse a presidential candidate. Bezos reportedly intervened to block an endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Bezos later defended the decision, writing in an op-ed that endorsements "create a perception of bias" and "do nothing to tip the scales of an election."

Tim Cook, Apple

Unlike some of his peers, Apple CEO Tim Cook — better known to Trump as "Tim Apple" — made a $1 million donation to Trump's inaugural fund from his own wallet, rather than from his company.

Cook has credited the first Trump administration with helping Apple break into the retail market in India.

Sam Altman, OpenAI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also made a personal donation of $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund.

Altman has stated that he agrees with some of Trump's views around bureaucratic blockades.

"The thing I really deeply agree with the president on is, it is wild how difficult it has become to build things in the United States," Altman told Bloomberg earlier this month.

He added: "Power plants, data centers, any of that kind of stuff. I understand how bureaucratic cruft builds up, but it's not helpful to the country in general."

Shou Zi Chew, TikTok

Shou Zi Chew, TikTok's CEO, was also spotted in the Capitol Rotunda.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled against TikTok on its challenge against a divest-or-ban law. The platform briefly went dark for US users on Saturday night but resumed its services on Sunday after Trump said he would pause the ban with an executive order.

On Friday, Chew thanked Trump for "his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States."

Sundar Pichai, Google

Google CEO Sundar Pichai was also in attendance Monday.

Google was among the companies that donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund.

Rupert Murdoch, NewsCorp

Rupert Murdoch, the patriarch of the Fox News empire, was also in attendance.

Bernard Arnault, LVMH

French billionaire Bernard Arnault, the CEO of luxury conglomerate LVMH, which includes brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior, attended the inauguration.

He was joined by daughter Delphine Arnault, who is CEO of Dior, and son Alexandre Arnault, who will become deputy CEO of LVMH's wines and spirits division, Moët Hennessy, starting in February.

Dana White, UFC

Silicon Valley's growing alignment with the cultural MAGA-verse was also on display Monday.

In attendance at the inauguration was Dana White, president and CEO of UFC, who was recently appointed to the board of Meta, and is a close Trump ally.

White and Meta's Zuckerberg, whose hobbies include MMA fighting, have been spotted together multiple times over the years.

Podcaster Theo Von, one of the internet celebrities Trump used to court young male voters, was at the inauguration, too, representing an ascendant realm of right-wing media.

Joe Rogan, who interviewed Trump on his podcast in late October, also attended.

Miriam Adelson, Las Vegas Sands

Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, was also in attendance.

According to the Associated Press, the longtime GOP megadonor co-hosted a reception for Trump on Monday night alongside Zuckerberg, Tilman Fertitta, Trump's pick for US ambassador to Italy, Todd Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, and Ricketts' wife, Sylvie Légère.

Phil Ruffin, Circus Circus Hotel and Casino

Las Vegas casino magnate Phil Ruffin attended the inauguration with his wife, Oleksandra Nikolayenko.

Trump had served as Ruffin's best man when he married Nikolayenko in 2008.

Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries

Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, attended Trump's inauguration along with his wife Nita, a spokesperson for Ambani confirmed to Business Insider.

The couple also attended Trump's pre-inauguration reception in Washington on Saturday.

Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment

Linda McMahon, Trump's nominee for education secretary and the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, was also present at Trump's inauguration.

While not a billionaire in her own right, McMahon gave $15 million to Trump's campaign and is married to Vincent McMahon, the former executive chairman of WWE-owned TKO Group Holdings, valued at $3 billion.

She led the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019, during Trump's first term in office.

Scott Bessent, Wall Street veteran

Also in attendance was Scott Bessent, Trump's pick for Treasury Secretary.

Bessent founded and runs the macro hedge fund Key Square Group and served as Trump's top economic advisor during the campaign.

If he gets Senate confirmation, Bessent would be the highest-ranking LGBTQ+ official in American history, according to the Associated Press.

Doug Burgum, Arthur Ventures

Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was another attendee at Trump's inauguration.

Burgum, Trump's pick to lead the Department of Interior and "energy czar," co-founded Arthur Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage B2B software businesses and manages $1.1 billion.

Chris Wright, Liberty Energy

Chris Wright, founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, an oilfield services firm with a $3.7 billion net value, was also present.

Trump has tapped Wright to lead the Department of Energy, but he will continue in his positions until the Senate confirms him, the company said.

Howard Lutnick, Cantor Fitzgerald

Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, was another attendee at Trump's inauguration.

Lutnick, who has been put forward as the next commerce secretary, has been president and CEO of the financial services firm since 1991.

In recent years, the billionaire banker has become a key advisor to Trump as well as a major fundraiser.

He is cochair of the Trump transition team.

Others congratulated Trump online

Responses from the corporate world also poured in online.

Pichai, Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg were among those congratulating Trump on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday.

Correction: January 20, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated Jeff Bezos' current position at Amazon. He is the founder and executive chairman, not the CEO.

• Argentina's Javier Milei was pictured with people close to Donald Trump at events over the weekend.
• Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kari Lake, and Roger Stone praised the Argentine president.
• His government has brought inflation down, but its approaches have also triggered a recession.

Javier Milei was the talk of Trumpworld in the days leading up to Donald Trump's inauguration.

Videos and pictures captured over the weekend showed Argentina's firebrand president rubbing shoulders with — and receiving praise from — some of those close to the president-elect, at events held in Washington, DC.

Milei was welcomed with a standing ovation and a round of applause at the Official Hispanic Inaugural Ball on Saturday, which celebrates the achievements and impact of US Hispanics.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the cohead of DOGE, who introduced him at the event, described Milei as "a man who knows how to DOGE & how to MAGA."

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is a new commission that aims to slash federal spending and cut regulations.

On Sunday, Michael Milken, chairman of the non-partisan economic think tank Milken Institute, also welcomed Milei at the Center for Advancing the American Dream as the event's "very first" speaker and for "shining a light not just Argentina but the world today."

Milken was pardoned by Trump in 2020. He had served 22 months in prison for insider trading in the 1990s and has become a prominent philanthropist.

Later that same day, Milei was pictured with Kari Lake, the Voice of America director-designate who lost the Arizona Senate last year, at the 1775 Gala.

"So blessed to speak with Argentina's incredible President @JMilei at the 1775 Gala — as we celebrate 250 years of faith and freedom!" she wrote.

Since assuming office in December 2023, Milei has overseen a decline in inflation in Argentina, but his sweeping cost-cutting policies have also triggered a recession.

Milei fired tens of thousands of public employees, shut down half the country's 18 ministries, and cut state spending by an estimated 31% in his first 10 months in office.

Partly as a result, Argentina's headline inflation rate dropped from 25.5% in December 2023 to 2.4% in November 2024 — the lowest it had been in over four years.

However, Facundo Nejamkis, director of Opina Argentina, a political consultancy firm, told Reuters in December that the cuts had ignited a "major" recession.

And Argentinians' purchasing power has eroded to record lows, with the real minimum wage falling by 30%, according to a December report by the Interdisciplinary Institute of Political Economy at the University of Buenos Aires' Economics Faculty.

Even so, Milei's policies have received praise and attention from some in Republican circles, due to his sweeping cost-cutting measures.

Elon Musk and Ramaswamy, the co-leaders of DOGE, have, in particular, praised Milei.

In fact, Musk repeatedly praised Milei on X over the weekend, saying once in Spanish that, "I love @JMilei."

As Business Insider previously reported, Ramaswamy and Musk have scaled back their goal of cutting $2 trillion from US federal spending by the time the commission disbands, no later than July 4, 2026, but have still floated a slate of reforms, from deleting agencies to firing federal employees.

Milei was also photographed with former Trump advisor Roger Stone, who, in an X post on Sunday, said, "I worked for Ronald Reagan, I worked for Donald Trump—and now, I have met 'El León,'" referring to Milei as "The Lion."

• A fire broke out at California's Moss Landing Power Plant on Thursday.
• The plant, said in 2023 to be the world's largest, stores energy for the California grid.
• 40% of the battery plant was burned, officials said, terming it a "disaster."

A major fire broke out Thursday at one of the world's largest battery storage plants.

The facility — in Moss Landing in northern California — stores energy for general use as part of the state grid and is a significant part of California's clean energy efforts.

Officials in Monterey County said it caught fire Thursday afternoon, prompting evacuation orders for over 2,000 people. County officials said at a press conference Friday that the fire caused no injuries or deaths and that most of the fire is now extinguished.

North County Fire Protection District Chief Joel Mendoza said at the press conference that every battery rack inside the facility has a "fire suppression system," but it wasn't enough.

"In other incidents that we've had, that system has worked perfectly," Mendoza said. "In this particular case, that system was not sufficient. It was overridden and that led to fire overtaking the system and eventually overtaking the entire building."

Ali Rangwala, the director of the explosion protection engineering program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, told Business Insider that lithium-ion batteries, being a high-energy-density fuel, present a possibility of an explosion hazard.

"Besides toxic gases, batteries also off-gas — or release — hydrogen, carbon monoxide, etc," Ranwala said in an email to Business Insider. "These gases, if confined and ignited, can pose an explosion hazard. This could propel fragments over large distances, depending on fuel load."

Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church said at the press conference that the incident was "more than just a fire."

"It's really a wake-up call for this industry, and if we're going to be moving ahead with sustainable energy, we need to have a safer battery system in place," Church told reporters.

Church said the fire is the fourth at the site since 2019.

"There are two battery operations going on there, and both of them have had fires, and this has got to be the last one," Church said.

The facility is operated by Vistra Energy, a Fortune 500 firm based in Irving, Texas. It serves some 4 million residential and commercial customers across 20 states.

Although its stock price was down just over 5% in premarket trading on Friday, it has soared more than 330% in the past 12 months, valuing it at $59 billion.

One of the batteries at Moss Landing, the Elkhorn Battery, was built in partnership with Tesla.

The system uses Tesla Megapack battery units, which contain lithium-ion batteries and power conversion equipment, and has a capacity of 730 megawatt hours of energy storage.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on X that any insinuation that the fire is related to Tesla is "false."

"This fire has nothing to do with Tesla and our Megapacks are operating well," Musk wrote.

Vistra Director of Community Affairs Brad Watson said at the press conference that the company is hiring an outside consultant to help with air quality testing in the area around the fire in addition to testing by the local government and the EPA.

"Safety is our top priority, and we've heard the comments, last night and this morning, from residents and officials, about the concern about air quality from what happened at our facility," Watson said.

In a press release announcing the plant's expansion in 2023, Texas-based Vistra Energy said it was one of the world's largest battery storage plants.

The site has experienced problems before. In 2015, a transmission tower at the power plant collapsed, resulting in a significant power outage.

A failing heat detector also damaged the battery complex in 2021, and in 2022, a fire broke out at a nearby Pacific Gas & Electric-owned battery plant.

Church said that the expansion of renewable energy in Monterey County "needs to be safe" and that he had been "personally assured" that the kind of fire that broke out Thursday would not happen at the facility.

"There were safety protocols in place," Church said. "Well, obviously, that failed. And I think that just shows the nature that nobody knows really what we're dealing with here in this technology, and as the importance of it is, we got to learn a lot more about it."

• Providing on-site protection during a fire is a tiny part of what private firefighting companies do, executives told BI.
• Crews for on-site protection cost thousands per day.
• Companies in the space said they mostly contract with the federal government or insurers, not private landowners.

Private firefighters aren't doing what you likely think they are — not exactly.

Reports of wealthy homeowners in the Los Angeles area paying private firefighters thousands of dollars per day have spread on social media in the past week, perpetuating the perception among some that on-site emergency protection for structures is what the industry is all about. Executives at two California-based private firefighting companies told Business Insider that's not the case.

Private firefighting for individual private landowners is niche

Jess Wills, president of Firestorm Wildland Fire Suppression, says his business primarily focuses on contracting with the federal government to suppress wildfires.

Deborah Miley, the executive director of the National Wildfire Suppression Agency, which represents more than 300 private firefighting companies, told BI that private firefighters have been contracting with the federal government since the 1980s, whereas the sliver of the industry that contracts directly with private landowners is "in its infancy." Some private companies also contract directly with insurers, Miley said, a practice that is also relatively new and far more common than working with homeowners directly.

Private firefighting as it's often perceived — with trucks stationed outside an individual's home, dousing it with water as a blaze burns — is not widespread, Wills said. He said that the practice makes up a tiny part of his business.

Private contractors who work for owners of homes or private land comprise less than 1% of the private fire service industry, according to the National Wildfire Suppression Association. Some private firefighting companies contract with insurance carriers to protect properties.

Wills said he first noticed interest in on-site fire suppression from private landowners a little under two decades ago.

"You started seeing high-net-worth folks making phone calls," Wills told BI, saying he doesn't publicly advertise the service. "For us, what happens is, fires kick-off, and then people start just getting online, Googling, searching 'private fire protection,' and somehow we come up."

Joe Torres, the founder of All Risk Shield, said he offers on-site protection as a small portion of his business. All Risk Shield provides three tiers of year-round fire defense services at varying price points, with the most basic costing $2,500 per year. The first tier includes preventive maintenance, and the second adds fire monitoring and further preparatory services. Only tier three, the most expensive, includes an on-site team to protect a property during a blaze. He declined to share how much tier three costs.

All Risk Shield doesn't offer on-site protection outside of the year-round package. Torres, who was a public firefighter for 24 years before founding his company, said he only has "a handful of those clients" who opt for a tier three service in California.

On-site protection can cost thousands per day

Neither Wills nor Torres shared how much it costs to hire a private firefighting crew for on-site emergency protection for an individual landowner. Both said that estimates of around $5,000 per day are consistent with what they believe some competitors charge.

Wills told BI that he charges individuals a very similar rate to the federal government — for a three-person crew in California, he said his contracts with the federal government cost about $4,000 per day. Rates vary based on location, the size of the property, and the number of trucks, he said.

Torres said his primary goal is to make basic fire protection accessible to as many people as possible, particularly through his least expensive, tier-one package. He said he worries that some companies are charging people exorbitant rates in dire situations.

"I've heard some numbers and some stuff, and it doesn't sound good," he said.

David Torgerson, the CEO of a company that exclusively works with insurers, previously told BI that he never interfaces with homeowners. His company, he said, protects vulnerable structures ahead of fires based on risk, not value.

Aspects of the private firefighting industry could be on the rise

Wills doesn't anticipate that the private firefighting industry will significantly grow in the next few years or that many people will take preventative action to fire-proof their homes. He said people are quick to forget about fires a few months after they happen.

Torres said he has seen an uptick in business since 2018, telling BI that there has been "significant growth" in his company since 2020. Miley, of the National Wildfire Suppression Agency, said she thinks more people will become interested in fire-hardening, or protecting their properties before a blaze comes in.

Fire mitigation strategies can include applying protective gels, removing combustibles, and cleaning gutters, Torgerson previously told BI. Typically, his crews will work on insured properties hours or days before a wildfire is anticipated to pass through.

Customers using private firefighters face criticism

Some of the few Californians that have hired on-site protection for their homes have faced criticism.

Keith Wasserman, cofounder and managing partner of Gelt Venture Partners, a Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm, sparked backlash after posting on social media asking if anyone had access to private firefighters to protect his home in Pacific Palisades, where the average property price is around $3.4 million.

"Does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home in the Pacific Palisades?" he asked in a since-deleted X post earlier this month. "Need to act fast here. All neighbors houses burning. Will pay any amount."

Wasserman didn't reply to a request for comment from Business Insider.

It's not the first time celebrities have hired private firefighters to protect their homes. In 2018, Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West, who now goes by the name Ye, hired crews to protect their $60 million home when blazes approached their neighborhood.

That incident also led to backlash.

Wills said he thinks it's the first time many people are learning about the private firefighting industry. Both he and Torres told BI that they don't think most understand the bulk of their business focus, but are well aware of the emerging negative connotations associated with the industry.

"I understand how the perception is on that, of course, but it's like, welcome to the real world," Wills said about the bubbling controversy. "Ask anybody: if you had the money in the bank and you knew somebody that had an engine available, why wouldn't you?"

• Spain's planned 100% tax on non-EU homebuyers is unlikely to solve its housing crisis.
• Spain's prime minister said too many foreigners were buying properties as investments, not homes.
• But hiking taxes could discourage buyers and hurt Spain's economy, economists told BI.

Spain's plan to impose a 100% tax on homebuyers from non-EU countries like the US and UK may fail to achieve its intended results, and could easily backfire on the country's economy, experts told Business Insider.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced the measure on Monday, as part of his government's efforts to tackle the country's growing housing problem.

If approved by lawmakers, the 100% tax would effectively double the cost of properties for non-EU homebuyers.

Sánchez said that too many foreign buyers saw Spanish property as an investment, and were buying homes for financial gains rather than to live in.

But experts said the impact may not be what the government hoped.

Jesús Alonso, a real-estate agent with Engel & Völkers, said the tax was unlikely to resolve Spain's housing crisis.

Instead, he said it could trigger a decline in demand for luxury properties, which could reduce new projects, especially in regions reliant on foreign buyers.

He also said the move could hurt regions reliant on foreign spending, as well as the retail and hospitality sectors, especially in coastal regions.

"A drop in demand could discourage new developments and stagnate this market," he added.

According to Spain's Association of Registrars, foreigners bought 24,700 properties in Spain in the third quarter of 2024, accounting for 15% of all real estate purchases.

This included EU and non-EU buyers.

The number was higher in the first half of 2024, when foreigners bought and sold 69,412 properties, or 20.4% of total sales and purchases, according to data from Spain's General Council of Notaries.

Antonio Fatas, a professor of economics at INSEAD, a French business school, said foreign purchases are not large enough to determine market prices.

He described the 100% tax as an "easy" fix to a "complex" problem, one that ignores the underlying cause of Spain's housing crisis, which is about supply and demand.

According to research by Caixa Bank, the supply of new housing in Spain is being weighed down by factors including a lack of land earmarked for development and a shortage of skilled labor.

"In the absence of a significant increase in the housing supply in the coming years, the gap between supply and demand will steadily widen," it said.

Caixa Bank said in September that it expected Spanish house prices to rise by 5% in 2024, and 2.8% in 2025.

José Carlos Díez Gangas, an associate partner at the venture capital firm LUAfund, said the government's strategy is to try to curb demand growth.

However, echoing Fatas' point, he said: "There is a shortage of supply, and the greatest effect will be on prices, which will surely continue to rise until more houses come on the market."

At the same time, Spain has seen many ghost towns spring up, due in part to the 2008 financial crisis, a lack of public services, and migration from rural areas to cities.

Some estimates point to upward of 3,000 abandoned villages, even as other areas struggle to find enough housing.

Still, experts say the latest government idea could backfire on the economy as a whole.

"Does it make sense to make it difficult for a foreigner to buy a home in Spain?" said Fatas, adding: "Clearly, this represents a flow of capital into Spain that can have positive effects on the economy."

He said that stopping these flows would "negatively affect the construction, tourism sector, and anyone who could benefit from such a transaction."

• Officials warn the Los Angeles fires aren't over yet.
• Though winds are forecast to die down this week, they could pick up again next week.
• The fires have burned through 40,000 acres and could have caused up to $275 billion in damage.

Los Angeles officials said Wednesday that they'd generally been able to keep the wildfires ravaging the area from spreading further — but they warned the region isn't in the clear yet.

Extreme fire danger conditions were forecast to continue through at least Wednesday evening local time, the National Weather Service said. Meteorologists said conditions could improve on Thursday.

The wildfires, which have now been raging for more than a week, have already burned through 40,000 acres and destroyed more than 12,300 homes and other structures.

More than 8,500 firefighters have been marshaled to fight the blazes, which have caused at least 25 reported deaths.

LA fires rage on for a ninth day

Officials said Wednesday that, over the past 24 hours, winds had not been as bad as expected, but the area still faced dangerous conditions.

The LA County Fire Department said Wednesday morning that a "red flag" warning for the Eaton Fire, one of the major blazes, had been extended into the evening. It said that the Santa Ana winds will gradually subside throughout the day, but very dry conditions will likely persist through Thursday.

"The anticipated 70-mile-an-hour winds have yet to materialize," Anthony Marrone, the Los Angeles County Fire Department chief, said at a Wednesday briefing. "However, this could change, and we are still at risk."

And though conditions may improve in the next few days, weather forecasters are already sounding the alarm for potential critical fire weather conditions beginning again toward the middle of next week.

The Palisades and the Eaton Fires — the two largest at 23,712 acres and 14,117 acres — were 19% and 45% contained as of Wednesday evening, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CalFire. The Hurst Fire, at 799 acres, was almost fully contained, it said.

Los Angeles County Robert Luna said that as of Wednesday morning, fewer people were under evacuation orders, noting 82,400 people affected. Evacuation warnings had risen slightly because of the winds, up to 92,400.

Looting, burglary, arson, and price gouging are hitting the area

As thousands of LA area residents struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives, others have taken advantage of the situation for their own gain.

LA officials have reported suspected instances of looting, burglary, and other crimes in wildfire-ravaged areas.

Sheriff Luna said Wednesday that his officers had made 44 arrests related to the Eaton and Palisades Fires, including for suspected burglary, trespassing, curfew violation, possession of guns and narcotics, and impersonating a firefighter.

In addition to those arrests, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell said Wednesday that his department had made 14 arrests related to the fires — for things like suspected felony vandalism, impersonating a firefighter, possession of burglary tools, and shoplifting.

There have also been a few cases of suspected arson, officials said.

In one suspected case on Tuesday evening, a bystander caught someone starting a fire near the edge of the Hurst Fire zone and detained them until officers arrived, McDonnell said. The bystander had already put out the fire by the time officers got there, and the suspect was taken into custody where McDonnell said he admitted to sparking the fire because "he liked the smell of burning leaves."

Another person was booked on suspicion of arson that day after McDonnell said she admitted to starting multiple rubbish and trash fires because she said she "enjoyed causing chaos and destruction."

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his office has seen instances of price gouging on medical supplies and hotels, as well as landlords overcharging above the legal limit.

Jason Oppenheim, the star of "Selling Sunset" who co-runs the real estate brokerage the Oppenheim Group, has also reported seeing landlords engaging in suspected price gouging.

Damage from the LA fires is mounting

The scope of the LA fires' destruction is beginning to come to light.

Preliminary estimates from AccuWeather peg the total damage and economic losses associated with the Southern California wildfires at up to $275 billion.

That would make the fires more economically damaging than the Maui wildfires from 2023, which AccuWeather said caused up to $16 billion in damages — and more destructive than 2024's Hurricane Helene, which caused $225 to $250 billion in damages, according to AccuWeather's estimate.

AccuWeather's estimate accounts for more than just damage to buildings and infrastructure — it also includes the expected financial impact of evacuation orders, the long-term cost of rebuilding or relocation for people whose homes were destroyed, anticipated cleanup and recovery costs, emergency shelter expenses, immediate and long-term healthcare costs for those who were injured or exposed to unhealthy air quality, as well as lost wages for people whose jobs will have been affected.

Meanwhile, according to Goldman Sachs, the total damage from the LA fires could rank among the top 20 costliest natural disasters in US history in terms of GDP.

And all that loss isn't going to help California's ongoing insurance crisis, where many homebuyers already struggle to get approved for loans, home insurance, and fire insurance — even in areas outside the typical risk zones.

Rising prices, which experts say will now likely only get worse, have forced some residents to go without insurance entirely — and for those impacted by the fires, the recovery costs will be significant.

Looking beyond the destruction of the LA fires

LA officials are already looking beyond the fires, despite firefighters still struggling to put out the larger blazes fully.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive order to speed up the city's building permit review process. The order calls for reviews to be completed within 30 days of submission.

The executive order also aims to streamline processes for clearing debris.

Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday issued an executive order barring land developers from making unsolicited and undervalued offers to buy properties.

"Make no mistake — this is a prosecutable crime," he said in an X post.

• Spain wants to put a 100% tax on homebuyers on foreign buyers.
• Its prime minister said too many were buying Spanish property as investments rather than homes.
• Spain faced some of Europe's largest housing price hikes in 2024.

Spain plans to put a 100% tax on homebuyers from overseas in an effort to tackle the country's housing crisis.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced the measure in a Monday speech at a housing forum in Madrid.

He said that too many foreign buyers saw Spanish property as investment vehicles and were buying homes for financial gain rather than to live in.

He said he would push for legislation to enact the new tax, effectively doubling property prices for non-EU buyers. The move would require the approval of Spanish lawmakers.

That would include US citizens, as well as people from the UK, where Spain is a popular retirement destination.

According to Spain's Association of Registrars, foreigners bought 24,700 properties in Spain in the third quarter of 2024, accounting for 15% of all real estate purchases in the country.

That figure did not differentiate between EU and non-EU foreign buyers.

Sánchez said the present situation was "absolutely unbearable" and an "emergency."

"Our homes cannot serve as a financial asset or a bank deposit," he said.

Sánchez pointed to recent laws in Canada as precedents — two provinces there charge 20-25% extra to foreign buyers.

Spain's housing market faced some of Europe's largest price hikes last year.

Home prices increased by 8.3% year-on-year in the last quarter of 2024, per Eurostat. The EU average was 3.8%.

According to research from Spain's Caixa Bank, new homes saw the sharpest price increase, with a 10.7% increase year over year in the first half of 2024.

Sánchez said the most significant factor in this rise was people using housing as an investment vehicle — though he also cited factors like population growth, land scarcity, rising construction costs, and restricted access to mortgages.

He said the "unprecedented" 100% tax would narrow a gap between "wealthy landlords" and "poor tenants," pointing to data showing Europe's average house prices rose 48% in the last decade — almost twice as much as disposable income.

"Spain's housing should be for Spanish people to live in, as well as for migrants who come here to work and build a life and contribute to the development and prosperity of our country," he added.

Sánchez didn't offer details on how the tax would work or a timeline for getting a law passed by Spain's legislature.

Spain's government didn't immediately reply to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Russia's elites are growing frustrated with Putin's efforts to wage war in Ukraine, per Meduza.
• Sources told the outlet they're also concerned about the long-term impact of Western sanctions.
• But Russian security officials appear to want Putin to intensify the war, a DC think tank said.

Russia's elites are growing tired of waiting for the war to end and are concerned about the long-term impact of Western sanctions on Russia's economy, according to a report by Meduza.

High-ranking sources told the independent Russian outlet that Russia's "elites" are disappointed that the war with Ukraine didn't end in 2024.

The sources included people close to and in the Russian presidential administration, two State Duma deputies, a senator, and three high-ranking officials in Russian regional governments.

One government source told the outlet that the overall emotions are "disappointment" and "fatigue."

"We were waiting for the war to end, for the fighting to end," they said. "We are tired of even waiting."

Two people close to the presidential administration said that the government doesn't have a clear postwar vision.

Meanwhile, another source said Russian elites, primarily high-ranking security officials, are growing irritated by the lack of manpower and material to wage the war, and believe Putin must launch a mobilization effort to further shift Russian society and economy to a war footing.

Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has significantly grown its military and war economy. However, the war has come at a considerable cost.

Russian troop losses have risen for six straight months, the UK Ministry of Defence said this week, citing Ukrainian data. It said Russia's costliest day came on December 19, when 2,200 of its troops were killed or wounded.

Russia's economy has also come under strain due to persistent high inflation, slowing economic growth, and Western sanctions.

Even so, the Institute for the Study of War, a DC think tank, said Meduza's report, published Thursday, suggests that high-ranking Russian military and security officials believe Putin should escalate the war rather than seek a diplomatic solution.

In an update on Thursday, the ISW said that Russian security and military officials don't appear ready to abandon the war, despite mounting battlefield losses.

Instead, it said, they are seemingly advocating for Putin to intensify Russia's war effort by calling for additional partial reserve call-ups and a formal decision to transition to a wartime footing.

But, according to the ISW, Putin is against further mobilizing the Russian economy or a partial involuntary reserve call-up because these measures would be extremely unpopular and would worsen the country's labor shortages.

• Wildfires are burning across Los Angeles County.
• Hundreds of thousands of people are under evacuation orders or warnings.
• Insured losses could top $20 billion, JPMorgan analysts estimated — the most-ever in California.

The Los Angeles area is battling a series of massive wildfires that continue to rip through its picturesque mountains and hillsides — creating a hellscape of burned-out neighborhoods and upended livelihoods that could ultimately be the most costly fire disaster in California history.

Authorities on Friday night expanded the evacuation zone related to the largest blaze, the Palisades Fire, east toward Santa Monica, less than 1.5 miles from the iconic Santa Monica Pier. The zone now encompasses the famous Getty Center, home of the Getty Museum.

Officials have now ordered over 153,000 residents to evacuate and warned another 166,000 to be ready to leave if the fires continue to spread. About 38,000 acres have burned. Officials have reported 13 deaths related to the fire as of Saturday.

At a press conference on Friday evening, officials managing the Eaton fire, which now spans over 14,000 acres and is one of the largest and deadliest, said they did not expect the blaze to spread significantly over the weekend due to more moderate wind conditions. However, officials said they are anticipating another high-wind event early next week. It was strong Santa Ana gusts of up to 90 miles per hour that first whipped the fires into a frenzy earlier this week.

JPMorgan analysts said the blazes tearing through the region could lead to over $20 billion in insured losses — and about $50 billion in total economic losses. That would make these conflagrations "significantly more severe" than the Camp Fires that struck the state in 2018 and racked up $10 billion in insured losses, the current record.

Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman described the scene in LA as apocalyptic, as thick bands of smoke surrounded the city. Los Angeles County is home to about 10 million people.

"Not since the 1990s, when Los Angeles was hit with the fires, the flood, the earthquake, and the riots, have I seen such disaster occur here in our city," Hochman said at a briefing, referring to the Northridge Earthquake and the disturbances in the wake of the Rodney King verdict.

Erroneous emergency alerts telling residents to evacuate areas unaffected by the fires further heightened panic in the region. Kevin McGowan, the director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, apologized for the messages at Friday's conference.

"There is an extreme amount of frustration, anger, fear, with regards to the erroneous messages that have been being sent out through the wireless emergency alert system. I can't express enough how sorry I am for this experience," he said.

He reassured residents that resolving the issue is his "top priority" and that he has technical specialists working to identify the root cause. "I implore everyone to not disable the messages on your phone," he said.

Late Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration warned civilians against flying unauthorized drones in areas undergoing firefighting efforts, after a firefighting plane sustained wing damage from a civilian drone and had to be grounded.

Satellite images of the LA fires showed the destruction left in their wake.

Starlink, Elon Musk's SpaceX subsidiary that provides satellite internet service, said Thursday that people in the Los Angeles area can use the company's network to text loved ones, contact 911, and receive emergency alerts.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced that he's doubling the number of California National Guard personnel on the ground to 1,680 members.

"The men and women of the California National Guard are working day and night to help Los Angeles residents during their greatest time of need," he said in a statement.

Here's a look at the latest happenings in the main fires spreading throughout the area:

Palisades Fire

The Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades area north of Santa Monica was the first fire to strike the region on Tuesday morning. It has spread to over 21,500 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Around 11% of the fire is contained, it says.

Five people have died in the Palisades fire, according to the medical examiner's office.

Los Angeles City's Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said at a press briefing earlier this week that the Palisades Fire had damaged or destroyed over 5,300 structures.

Crowley would not confirm reports that the fire started in a resident's garden, saying the origin is still under investigation.

Some celebrities have lost homes in the blaze, including Paris Hilton and Billy Crystal.

On Thursday, a drone hit the wing of one of two Super Scooper planes fighting the wildfires, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said at a Friday press conference. He said the plane was under urgent repairs and set to be flying again by Monday. "If you fly a drone at one of these brush fires all aerial operations will be shut down," he said.

Eaton Fire

The second-largest fire in Los Angeles County is the Eaton Fire, which started on Tuesday evening in the Pasadena-Altadena area at the foothills of the Angeles National Forest.

Eight people have died in the Eaton fire, Los Angeles County Sheriff Commander Tania E. Plunkett said at a press conference on Saturday afternoon.

The blaze has spread to over 14,100 acres, Marrone said at the Saturday conference, adding that over 7,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed and 15% of the fire is contained.

The cause of the fire remains "unknown," Marrone previously said.

Hurst Fire

The Hurst Fire, which began late on Tuesday night in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley, spread to 799 acres and is 76% contained, per Cal Fire.

In an X post on Thursday afternoon, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the mandatory evacuation order for the Hurst Fire had been lifted.

Kenneth Fire

On Thursday, a small brush fire erupted at the Victory Trailhead near the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Marrone said that the fire had been stopped. It burned just over 1,000 acres, but no structures were reported damaged. It is 80% contained, per Cal Fire.

A mandatory evacuation order was issued for several neighborhoods near the fire.

LAPD said it had detained a possible arson suspect but could not confirm any connection to the fire.

An evacuation notice intended for residents impacted by the Kenneth Fire was mistakenly sent out across LA County due to a "technical error," County Supervisor Janice Hahn said in an X post.

Sunset Fire and others

The Sunset Fire broke out in the Runyon Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday evening, quickly spreading to scorch over 40 acres and threaten major LA landmarks.

As of Thursday morning, firefighters were able to stop the fire's forward progress, Crowley said.

All evacuation orders related to the Sunset Fire were lifted as of 7:30 a.m. Thursday, she added.

A large structure fire consumed two large homes in the Studio City area but firefighters were able to stop its forward growth at just one acre and prevent another brushfire, Crowley said.

Yet another fire, the Lidia Fire, started Wednesday afternoon in Acton near the Antelope Valley, about 20 miles northeast of the San Fernando Valley. It consumed 395 acres but is now 100% contained, according to CalFire.

The Woodley Fire, which began Wednesday morning in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley, has been suppressed and there are no current threats, Crowley said.

Patrols were monitoring the area for any flare-ups, she added.

Events canceled and landmarks closed as smoke chokes LA

Major and minor events alike have been canceled or postponed across the Los Angeles area as the city battles the fires.

The 30th Annual Critics Choice Awards, set for Sunday night, were rescheduled for January 26. A National Hockey League game between the Los Angeles Kings and the Calgary Flames, scheduled for Wednesday night at Crypto.com arena, was postponed. The LA Lakers rescheduled Thursday night's game.

Music venues across the city were also canceling or postponing their shows, including The Troubadour, The Wiltern, The Echo, the Kia Forum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and others.

Flights into and out of LAX, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Ontario International Airport, and Santa Ana's John Wayne Airport were also experiencing delays and cancellations. LAX, however, remains open.

The fires are also shuttering tourist destinations in and around Los Angeles, which attracts nearly 50 million visitors a year.

The fires forced some Los Angeles-area landmarks to close, including the Hollywood sign, the Los Angeles Zoo, the Broad Museum, the Norton Simon Museum, the Getty Villa and Getty Center, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal CityWalk, and the Griffith Observatory.

Airbnb told CNN that it would be allowing refunds for bookings in areas affected by the wildfires, following a viral social media post from a customer who said the company refused to offer her a refund.

California already struggled with an insurance crisis

The devastating fires this week will likely only worsen California's ongoing insurance crisis, where many homebuyers already struggle to get approved for loans, home insurance, and fire insurance — even in areas outside the typical risk zones.

In recent years, some insurance companies, like State Farm, have stopped accepting new home insurance policies in the state entirely, as wildfire risks have only increased.

Experts told Business Insider that prices are likely to continue rising for those who can still get insurance.

"I've seen numbers go up 200%, 300%, even 500% in a year," Nick Ramirez, the owner of a California insurance agency, told BI.

And as the fires' estimated damages already climb into the billions of dollars, some homeowners will have to rebuild without the help of insurance payouts.

• Major fires in the Los Angeles area have leveled entire communities.
• Satellite images show flames wreaking havoc on houses, businesses, and other structures.
• At least 10 people have died, and the fires have destroyed about 10,000 structures.

Widespread fires have besieged the Los Angeles area for four days. At least 10 people have died and more than 150,000 have been ordered to evacuate their homes.

As of Friday afternoon, six separate fires were still burning in parts of the city and its surrounding areas, but firefighters were making progress during a reprieve from powerful winds.

Satellite and aerial images provided to Business Insider by Maxar Technologies and Nearmap show the trail of destruction the fires have left in Altadena, Pasadena, Malibu, and Pacific Palisades, some of the most heavily affected areas.

The Palisades and Eaton Fires

These two blazes spread for days with firefighters unable to stop their growth.

As of Friday at noon Pacific Time, the Palisades fire had consumed more than 20,400 acres and was 8% contained, and the Eaton Fire had burned more than 13,600 acres with 3% containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Together, they've destroyed about 10,000 structures, the agency estimates.

Entire neighborhoods burned to the ground

Charred, leveled communities like this are emerging in the paths of both fires.

A windstorm quickly spread the fires

Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles County, was the first to be devastated. The fire there broke out on Tuesday morning.

The blaze spread so far, so quickly in part because of a windstorm that the National Weather Service called "life-threatening and destructive."

Gusts up to 100 mph carried burning embers far into residential areas, igniting spot fires that grew into an urban conflagration.

In the above image, you can see where some of those spot fires began far from the initial brush fire.

Some of the world's most expensive homes burned

The Palisades Fire alone has become the most destructive fire ever to hit Los Angeles County, CNN reported Wednesday, citing Cal Fire data. Fire experts suspect it could be the costliest in California history, maybe even in US history.

The Altadena neighborhood also burned

These satellite images show houses burned down in the Altadena neighborhood, one of the areas most affected by the Eaton Fire.

The neighborhood was virtually destroyed

Houses and buildings on East Altadena Drive are glowing orange with flame and shrouded in smoke in this image from Wednesday.

Flying over the area after the flames subsided, the ABC7 helicopter pilot Scott Reiff said, "it looks basically like it was carpet-bombed."

In Pasadena, idyllic streets turned to ash

When houses are built this close together, one burning building can easily ignite its neighbors. A house fire burns much hotter than a forest fire because of the materials that are burning, according to Louis Gritzo, the chief science officer at the commercial property insurance company FM.

Many homes didn't stand a chance. They were under siege from "the high heat release from one burning structure combined with a continual ember attack," Gritzo said.

The road to Malibu burned

The Pacific Coast Highway and Tuna Canyon Road, which connects Malibu and Topanga, were covered in smoke Wednesday as fires burned through.

Many of the homes along the PCH have been incinerated.

Malibu did, too

The true scale of devastation and loss of life may not become clear for many days.

Fire conditions may continue for days

A red flag warning for critical fire weather is set to continue in Los Angeles and Ventura counties through 6 p.m. Friday.

The National Weather Service expects about 18 hours of reprieve before another round of "gusty" winds late Saturday into Sunday, with a stronger wind event possible Monday night through Wednesday.

"We're not out of the woods yet," said Courtney Carpenter, a warning-coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

Correction: January 9, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of a warning-coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service. She's Courtney Carpenter, not Courtney Carpen.

• Firestorms in Los Angeles have burned nearly 27,000 acres, destroying homes and killing five people.
• One of the biggest blazes, the Palisades Fire, could be the costliest in US history.
• The fires have spread so fast in part because of a windstorm and flood-drought whiplash.

All was well in Los Angeles at around 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

Less than 24 hours later, 2,925 acres of the Pacific Palisades were ablaze in what is being called the worst wildfire in Southern California since 2011. It has grown by orders of magnitude since.

Several more blazes have ignited in the area, with one, the Eaton Fire, engulfing another 10,600 acres.

Firefighters had not contained the fires as of early Thursday morning, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom told CNN that five people were dead, and "likely more."

More than 1,000 structures have burned and the fires could get even worse.

California is no stranger to fires, but this situation is different and especially dangerous for a few reasons.

An 'urban firestorm' that could be the costliest in history

Few brush fires in California history have intruded into such vast areas of dense, urban housing.

The UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain called it an "urban firestorm" as he assessed live images of the developing Eaton Fire on Tuesday morning.

Perhaps the best historical comparison is the 1991 Tunnel Fire, which raged through more than 1,500 acres of Oakland, but it was smaller than either of the two giant blazes in Los Angeles. It killed 25 people and injured 150, and ranks as the third-deadliest and third-most-destructive fire in California history.

The true toll of this week's fires won't be clear until later.

Swain said that he and several colleagues have estimated that the Palisades Fire could be the costliest on record in the US because of the number of structures burning and the fact that those homes are some of the most expensive in the world.

"We are looking at what is, I think, likely to become the costliest wildfire disaster in California, if not national history, along with a number of other superlatives," Swain said.

A historic windstorm spread the fire fast

A powerful windstorm buffeted the flames throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, with gusts of wind reaching up to 90 miles an hour, according to the National Weather Service.

During a 2 ½ hour period overnight, the Palisades Fire's size more than doubled, per the fire service's reports.

The winds were so powerful on Tuesday evening that water- and retardant-dropping aircraft could not fly.

It's a phenomenon that scientists have warned about: a deadly combination of high winds and dry, open land — such as the brushland now being swept by flames in Los Angeles — amounting to fires that move faster than emergency responders can keep up with.

"It's certainly unusual how fast it's grown," Douglas Kelley, a researcher at the UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, told Business Insider. "It's definitely a lot faster than I guess a lot of people were expecting in the area at the time."

A study published in Science in October found that while only about 3% of US fires over a nearly two-decade period could be considered "fast fires," they caused disproportionate damage.

"The most destructive and deadly wildfires in US history were also fast," wrote the study's authors, led by University of Colorado Boulder's Jennifer Balch.

Between 2001 and 2020, fast fires accounted for 78% of fire-destroyed buildings and a full 61% of suppression costs — or $18.9 billion, the scientists wrote. And they are getting more frequent, the study said.

The windstorm was bad luck. But the other primary factor in the fires' rapid explosions — the fuel — is strongly linked to the climate crisis.

Weather whiplash made abundant fire fuel

Southern California has experienced heavy rainfall and flooding the past two winters — which is a huge part of the problem.

Abundant rainfall spurred an explosion of grasses and brush, the primary fire fuel in Southern California. Then, with very little rainfall in the past few months, all that vegetation was flash-dried.

Kelley said those dry conditions made the Palisades especially susceptible to a fast-spreading fire.

This is part of a growing phenomenon that Swain calls "hydroclimate whiplash," or weather whiplash. As global temperatures rise, many parts of the world, especially California, are seeing more violent swings between extreme wet and extreme dry conditions.

The same confluence of weather whiplash and extreme winds was behind the Camp Fire, Swain said. That November 2018 blaze in Paradise, California, was the deadliest and most destructive in the state's history, destroying 18,804 structures and killing 85 people.

• A Ukrainian F-16 pilot may have pulled off a feat no one flying the jet has achieved before.
• Ukraine's Air Force Command said the pilots took out six Russian cruise missiles in a single flight.
• Colonel Yuriy Ihnat said it was the first time this had been recorded in the jet's history.

Ukraine said one of its F-16 pilots achieved a feat nobody flying the jet has managed before.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Ukraine's Air Force Command said a pilot flying an F-16 took out six Russian cruise missiles during a single flight, using air-to-air missiles and an aircraft cannon.

This occurred during a "mass" missile and drone attack in December, it said.

On December 13, Russia fired almost 200 drones, Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles, and 94 cruise missiles at Ukraine.

The pilot's main target was the cruise missiles, according to the post.

He used all four air-to-air missiles on board the F-16, two of which were short-range, forcing the jet to fly closer to the missiles — an "extremely dangerous" task, it said.

The pilot then struck two other missiles flying close to each other using an air cannon.

Business Insider was not able to verify the report.

Intercepting "such important targets is not an easy task for a pilot, but who, if not Ukrainian pilots, has the most experience in the world of winged missiles?" Colonel Yuriy Ihnat, head of the Ukrainian Air Force Command's public relations service, said.

Since the start of its full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has frequently launched large missile attacks on Ukraine, aimed at overwhelming Ukraine's air defense systems and hitting targets behind the front lines.

The pilot, who had recently undergone retraining for F-16s in the US, said in the post that Ukrainian F-16 pilots had never used an aviation cannon to shoot down targets.

However, he said he applied the lessons he learned in the US.

"I must have set a record that day," he said, adding, "I am convinced that this experience will be useful to colleagues."

Colonel Ihnat described it as the first-ever documented case.

He said that "based on objective control, we have one hundred percent confirmation that for the first time in history in anti-air combat, an American fighter F-16 shoots down six winged missiles."

• Ukraine says it's designed a new type of river drone to target Russian vessels.
• The Black Widow 2 is also able to perform reconnaissance operations, it said.
• Ukraine's military requested it to combat Russian forces and supply runs on the Dnipro River.

Ukraine says it has developed a new type of drone to target Russian vessels deployed on Ukrainian rivers.

Hard Cat, a Kyiv-based drone manufacturer, told Business Insider that the uncrewed river drone, the Black Widow 2, can take out surface targets, including small boats.

It can also carry out reconnaissance and patrolling operations, providing real-time situational awareness, it said, with a maximum speed of almost 25 miles an hour and a communication range of up to 6.2 miles.

And unlike sea drones, which operate in wider bodies of water, the one-meter-long drone's "compact size and high maneuverability allow it to operate effectively" in narrow waterways and river areas.

Drones have been a hallmark of the war in Ukraine, with both sides using them to attack, surveil, and target more accurately.

Ukraine has heavily targeted Russia's fleet in the Black Sea using sea drones, with notable effect.

Hard Cat unveiled the river drone's prototype at the Defense Tech Valley investment summit in Kyiv in October 2024.

It told BI the drone has now been successfully tested in rear-area conditions and is undergoing combat trials with two Ukrainian army brigades. It didn't say where those trials were taking place.

"Warfare on water is quite specific and comes with unique challenges, making such a small water drone potentially very useful," it added.

One of the developers, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told BI that they began work on the drone in December 2023, at the request of the Ukrainian military, as a way to counter Russian motorboats used for personnel rotation, supply runs, and reconnaissance.

At the time, Ukrainian troops were fighting to hold out on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, against Russian forces that vastly outnumbered them.

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told BI that he expects Ukraine to use these new systems primarily on the Dnipro.

"They would probably be most useful in a defensive role, such as striking small vessels carrying Russian assault troops or supplies," he said, rather than working in conjunction with larger, longer-range naval drones to attack Russian ships in the Black Sea.

Basil Germond, an expert in international security at Lancaster University in the UK, made a similar assessment.

"It is important to understand that Russia not only operates big warships and submarines but also a wide array of small boats that support land operations at the tactical level, especially in the wet areas such as the Dnipro Estuary and other rivers," he said.

Germond added: "River drones are likely to contribute to operations against these sorts of assets."