Here is your Forbes Daily Briefing for Saturday, December 21st.

Today on Forbes, revealed the mysterious ghost drones of the Ukraine War.

The factory in Tampa, Florida, where AVEX Aerospace produces its Phoenix ghost drones for Ukraine

is as mysterious as the kamikaze aircraft themselves.

A squat, nondescript building, set amid fields of scrubby trees and warehouses,

the plant, which opened this spring, has no branding or signage.

Avix has been warned that Russia is working to locate suppliers of weapons to Ukraine, including

their employees.

To protect them, identifying markings are removed from the drone's components and the deadly

aircraft are thoroughly wiped down before delivery to ensure they leave the factory with

no fingerprints or DNA.

Secrecy has shrouded Phoenix Ghost since the project was first publicly mentioned by the

Department of Defense, or DoD, in April 2022, two months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine,

as part of a package of military aid that was being rushed to the beleaguered country.

For two years, there were no identifiable photos or videos of

the drones from the battlefield. And because of the Pentagon's contractual secrecy requirements,

AVEX and the Ukrainian military were tight-lipped, helping fuel fevered speculation. But those limitations

have been relaxed, and in October, Forbes was able to visit Avex's

Florida factory to learn how a small defense contractor, with no experience building drones,

landed contracts to churn out a motley family of armaments that, along with similar aerial

weapons, have come to define the now almost three-year-long battle over Ukraine.

AVEX showed Forbes four different drones it's produced for the Phoenix Ghost program,

...