On July 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the country had reached an agreement to export unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the US.
He said the contracts being prepared have potential value of between 10 and 30 billion USD. This is the first time Kiev has publicly announced a plan to export UAVs, after a long time focusing only on serving domestic military needs.
Mr Zelensky stressed that the US, under President Trump, has expressed interest in Ukrainian-made UAVs. He revealed that the two sides discussed bilateral defense cooperation, including Ukraine's need for patriot air defense systems.
Ukraine has previously banned UAV exports to focus on the conflict with Russia. However, Kiev is currently considering or has begun to allow exports to neighboring countries. President Zelensky has assigned Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov, Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal and advisor Oleksandr Kamyshin to prepare relevant contracts.
Since the conflict with Russia broke out, Ukraine has strongly expanded its UAV production capacity, with the goal of achieving millions of units per year. The production process combines industrial scale at the factory and small scale at craft workshops, using commercial components and improving from practical experience.
In the context of Russia increasing the use of Shahed-style attack UAVs, Ukraine is stepping up the development of intercept UAVs - a type of device capable of detecting, tracking and disabling other UAVs. Mr Zelensky on July 25 called on domestic manufacturers to ensure the ability to deploy at least 1,000 intercepted UAVs per day to deal with air threats.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, Moscow is aiming to produce 30,000 long-range UAVs and 2 million FPV UAVs in 2025.
