The US has retired planes decades ago that are superior to the best Russia has today, so no I doubt we really care about Russia's thoughts. China maybe.
> Aren't things getting to the point where drones are a global commodity and indigenous manufacturing capability is mostly moot?
“Drones” covers a wide range of things, from a Tu-141 to a Shahed-136 to a improvised grenade-dropping quadcopter to the MQ-1/9/20 Predator/Reaper/Avenger series to tbe X-47B and the (maybe soon) unmanned operation capacity of the B-21.
Some capability sets are widely enough available to be seen as commodities, some are available on the export market, but from a narrow range of suppliers who provide them very selectively, and some represent unique capacities.
No. There are no drones which can reliably penetrate a modern integrated air defense system and strike a hardened target with large bunker buster bombs. The B-21 is supposed to be able to operate as a drone (optionally manned) but in a conflict with a near-peer adversary which can degrade the satellite communications necessary for remote piloting there will need to be humans in the cockpit.
That's the point! There are a hell of a lot of "unhardened" targets and using a full scale aircraft as a drone is missing the point about cost. I mean, there's not just the news from Ukraine, but also this:
...and it looks like a classic case of "disruptive technology" syndrome, where the incumbents dismiss the upstart as inadequate for their sophisticated customers - justifiably as far as it goes - until all of a sudden the tsunami arrives because the new tech has been iterating until it can address the high end.
I read the original book defining the phenomenon in my university library around the time it came out, and it's interesting how describing the problem manifestly hasn't created a solution:
