U.S. and Ukraine Sign Memorandum on Joint Drone Ventures and Technology Cooperation

U.S. State Department and Ukraine’s ambassador in Washington have outlined a memorandum that would route Ukrainian drone technology into joint ventures on American soil.

U.S. For the first time since 2022. It was drawn between the State Department and Ukrainian Ambassador Olha Stefanishyna and would integrate Ukrainian producers into joint ventures and tech-transfer arrangements with American firms. Kyiv effectively banned arms exports in 2022 to maintain its own forces at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The memorandum caps two weeks in which Kyiv adopted an export framework dubbed “Drone Deals,” launched a procurement coalition with multiple European partners and watched Washington lift a 1997 import ban. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy touted the new framework at a May 13 summit in Bucharest, Romania.

Zelenskyy spoke at the summit with delegates from NATO’s nine eastern-flank members and their Nordic allies on May 13, 2026.

“I believe all of us need bilateral Drone Deals, using Europe’s production capabilities and Ukrainian expertise proven in real defense during a real war,” he said. Over four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022, Ukraine has built an arms industry that manufactures much of the hardware seen on the battlefield today.

Kyiv signed four bilateral export contracts and is pursuing roughly 20 more across the Middle East and partner countries. U.S. investors have already expressed interest in Ukrainian defense-tech companies, Olha Stefanishyna said.

U.S. government bought an initial 1,000 P1SUN drones from Ukraine in April. Ihor Matviyuk heads Aero Center Drones, a Kyiv-based manufacturer building FPV strike platforms and interceptor drones.

A Western government asked Aero Center for 1,500 interceptor drones earlier this year, but Matviyuk said he had to turn down the request despite having the manufacturing capacity to fulfill it within weeks. “The Ukrainian military will always have the right to priority and sufficient supply – they will take what is needed, and the volume beyond that will go to export,” Zelenskyy said in an April 28 Telegram post.

“In some production areas, we currently have up to 50% surplus capacity,” he added.

Ukraine’s defense production capacity has grown 35 times since the invasion began, from $1 billion to $35 billion, while domestic contracts covered only about a third of that capacity last year. Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council projects defense production capacity will hit $55 billion in 2026. 1 billion in 2025 after totaling roughly $600 million in 2024.

The new framework permits five export categories: drones, missiles, ammunition, software and integration services, drawn from Defense Ministry-certified surplus. Russia and its cooperators are blacklisted from buying Ukrainian weapons. “The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, based on intergovernmental agreements with partners, will define the framework for cooperation – just to ensure that Ukrainian technologies and Ukrainian weapons do not end up in Russian hands,” Zelenskyy said.

The framework opens three legal channels for producers: independent licensing through the State Export Control Service, routing via specialized state arms-trade companies, and a 15-day “Defense City” preliminary permit. Defense City is a special legal regime for defense manufacturers launched in January that grants qualifying firms tax exemptions, simplified customs and the fast-track 15-day export permit.

Zelenskyy announced ten European hubs in February.

Every signed contract will now move through a 90-day clock at the State Export Control Service and a 17-member interagency commission under the National Security and Defense Council. The NSDC commission had sat dormant for eight months until Zelenskyy reactivated it in December. The NSDC commission has made roughly 80 decisions since reactivation.

Ukraine and five European nations – Finland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom – signed the CORPUS Memorandum on April 30 in a Kyiv hotel garage-turned-bunker. Arsen Zhumadilov heads the Defense Procurement Agency, set up in 2023. Middleman firms’ share of arms procurement in Ukraine has fallen from 81% to 12%.

Denmark, France and the Netherlands have registered interest in joining the CORPUS group. Kyiv and Berlin announced six new joint ventures over the last month. Norway inked a parallel cooperation declaration to mass-produce Ukraine’s mid-range strike drones.

Zelenskyy has announced plans to open ten export hubs across Europe in 2026, with production lines already running in the United Kingdom. “Instead of us thinking that Ukraine needs Europe, perhaps we should think that we in Europe need Ukraine more,” Finland’s president Alexander Stubb said on May 4.