In case you—like us—have been flitting between events and trying to keep up with a flood of news in the past few weeks, you may have missed a major piece of news in our corner of the defense tech world: Last week, a delegation from Kyiv was in Washington to hammer out the details of a $50B deal to sell Ukrainian drones to the US. And it seems that the agreement has the support of both US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
My, oh my, how far we’ve come since that meeting in February.
Tit for tat: Rumors of a “drone deal” between the US and Ukraine first started circulating earlier this summer—in August, Zelenskyy said that the two countries were working on a deal worth up to $50B to produce up to 10 million drones a year for five years.
Also in August, he said that Ukraine was looking to purchase up to $90B-worth of American weapons, including long-range missiles. $50B for $90B seems…fair.
Help a frenemy out: The idea of the deal is pretty simple: Ukraine has spent the last three and a half years perfecting the production and use of drones, and the US wants to get in on it (remember drone dominance?). Plus, it’s a pretty good way to ensure that Ukraine’s wartime economy doesn’t collapse if the war with Russia ever comes to an end.
According to a statement by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the delegation this week presented leaders in Washington with their country’s latest drone tech. Plus:
- The delegation met with “all service branches” of the US Armed Forces to chat about how their drones could help out, and presented them with “proposals regarding specific drone models, their effectiveness, and operational conditions.”
- The two sides not only discussed UAVs, but maritime drones and ground systems as well.
- The deal, according to the MoD statement, will cover both the import of Ukrainian weapons to the states as well as the co-production of some Ukrainian drone models.
The MoD characterized last week’s meetings as a “preparatory step” towards the signing of a full-blown agreement.
Build-up: We’ve written about the export of Ukraine’s defense industry before: Basically, in the past three years, the country has built up massive production capacity as a result of, well, the war. In 2022, Ukraine’s defense production capacity stood at just $1B—this year, that’s expected to reach $35B. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say.
- Trouble is, domestic demand for weaponry remains low, at around $11.5B.
- Nearly 40 percent of all frontline weaponry—including nearly all drones and EW—is produced domestically.
A huge portion of Ukraine’s defense industry buildup has been centered around drones. According to Zelenskyy, the country churned out 2.2M drones in 2024.
- Ukraine now has around 200 drone producers, up from 7 in 2022. Those producers will need customers if (fingers crossed) the war were to end.
- Ukraine is also churning out larger, domestically produced unmanned systems, like the Magura family of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) that have done a number on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
- While not drone-flavored, the country has also built its own cruise missiles and howitzer prototypes.
Lock it down: The issue is that, at least so far, it’s been tricky to export these weapons systems—Ukraine has had a weapons export ban in place since the start of the war in 2022. The idea is to keep much-needed weapons in the country to shore up defenses against their not-so-friendly neighbor.
- Ukrainian officials, however, have indicated they’re considering lifting this ban pretty soon to export Ukrainian tech to allies.
- Last fall, Zelenskyy had the Defense Ministry draft legislation that would allow the export of weapons to allies and members of the Ramstein group.
- Last month, Ihor Brusylo, foreign policy adviser to Zelenskyy, told Defense News that the country was “working on a formula that would allow it to be lifted for certain industries, including drones, for possible cooperation and production with Joint Expeditionary Force [JEF] countries.”
Droning on: Any influx of drones would help the DoD meet the lofty standards it’s set for itself under the Trump administration. According to the “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” memo unveiled by SecDef Hegseth (and delivered by drone) back in July, by next year, drones should be part of “all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars.”
Plus, by the end of 2026, “every squad” is to be equipped with “low-cost, expendable drones,” and by 2027, all training events across the DoD must include UAS.
Sounds like the Ukrainians might just be coming to the rescue.