Ukraine’s kamikaze drones have destroyed Russian tanks, command posts, and ammunition depots by the thousands since 2022. Now Washington and Kyiv are negotiating a formal memorandum that would let Ukraine export those battle-tested weapons and manufacture them alongside American defense companies through joint ventures, according to Ukrainian government readouts and U.S. corporate filings reviewed for this report.
The talks have advanced along three parallel tracks: government-to-government negotiations, private-sector deals already in motion, and a White House executive order that has reshaped federal drone policy. If the memorandum is finalized, it could open NATO and other allied markets to Ukrainian loitering munitions while giving U.S. firms access to designs refined under real combat conditions, a combination no other drone-exporting nation can currently offer.
Diplomatic groundwork
A technical delegation from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense met with U.S. counterparts to discuss drone acquisition and joint production, according to an official readout published by the Ukrainian MoD. The talks covered procurement of Ukrainian-made drones and the framework for manufacturing partnerships, establishing that formal cooperation on unmanned systems was already underway before the current memorandum draft emerged.
That effort sits inside a broader diplomatic structure. Ukraine and the United States signed a Memorandum of Intent to finalize an Agreement on Economic Partnership, with the full text published on the Cabinet of Ministers website. That document focuses on wider economic ties rather than drones specifically, but it demonstrates that both governments have an established pathway for moving from memorandum to binding agreement. The drone-specific talks appear to be following the same process.
Private-sector deals are not waiting
American companies have already begun positioning themselves to commercialize Ukrainian drone technology. In October 2025, AIRO Group and Bullet signed a Letter of Intent to form a joint venture aimed at bringing Ukraine-developed interceptor drones to U.S. and NATO defense markets. As of June 2026, the venture’s operational status has not been publicly updated, but the LOI signaled that private firms saw enough momentum in the government-to-government talks to move early.
A separate SEC filing, a Form 424B4, disclosed a non-binding LOI for a proposed joint venture with Nord-Drone LLC to develop, manufacture, and commercialize unmanned aerial systems across the United States, Ukraine, NATO countries, and other territories. The filing specifies ownership structure details and conditions including export-control assessments and due diligence, meaning these ventures are already engaging with the regulatory hurdles that will determine whether Ukrainian technology actually reaches allied forces.
Letters of intent are common in the defense sector and often serve investor-relations purposes as much as operational ones. They confirm commercial interest, not production timelines or contract values. But the fact that multiple U.S. companies have filed public documents around Ukrainian drone partnerships suggests the opportunity is being taken seriously at the corporate level.
The policy environment in Washington
Executive Order 14307, titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” sets federal priorities around drone supply chain integrity and export support for U.S.-manufactured unmanned systems. The order does not name Ukraine, but it creates a policy environment that favors onshoring drone production and expanding exports of American-made platforms.
That distinction matters. If Ukrainian designs are produced on U.S. soil through joint ventures, they could potentially qualify for the export-promotion tools and financing mechanisms the order seeks to mobilize. The connection is inferential rather than explicit: the executive order did not mandate cooperation with any specific country. But analysts tracking the drone sector note that the order’s emphasis on domestic manufacturing and allied supply chains aligns closely with what the Ukrainian MoD delegation was proposing.
Why kamikaze drones specifically
Ukraine’s wartime drone industry has scaled at a pace few defense establishments predicted. Ukrainian manufacturers produced an estimated 200,000 or more first-person-view attack drones in 2024 alone, according to multiple defense reporting outlets, and the country’s loitering munitions have been tested against armored vehicles, fortified positions, and moving targets in ways that no peacetime proving ground can replicate.
That combat record is the core selling point. Turkey’s Baykar has dominated the export market for medium-altitude strike drones, and Iran’s Shahed-series one-way attack drones have been widely proliferated. But Ukrainian manufacturers offer something neither competitor can: thousands of hours of operational data gathered against a near-peer adversary equipped with modern air defenses and electronic warfare systems. For NATO militaries planning to stockpile affordable strike drones, that data is extremely valuable.
The memorandum under discussion would, if finalized, give Ukrainian firms a legal pathway to sell directly to allied governments and to co-produce with American partners who can navigate U.S. export-control regulations, specifically the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) framework that governs the sale of defense articles and services abroad.
What has not been confirmed
No primary text of the drone-specific memorandum has been publicly released as of June 2026. The evidence trail includes Ukrainian MoD readouts, private-sector LOIs, and the broader economic partnership memorandum, but the document itself has not appeared on any official government website.
Direct statements from U.S. officials confirming the draft’s status or scope are also absent from the public record. The verified information flows almost entirely from Ukrainian government announcements and American corporate filings. Whether the Pentagon, the State Department, or the National Security Council has formally endorsed the specific terms remains undocumented publicly. That leaves open questions about how far along the interagency review process is on the American side, and whether concerns about technology transfer, escalation risks, or intellectual property protections have created friction.
The scope of the memorandum is also unclear. The Ukrainian MoD readout references drone acquisition and joint production in general terms, not a specific model or munition type. It is not yet known whether the agreement would cover only certain classes of loitering munitions, broader families of reconnaissance and strike drones, or a mix of platforms and subsystems such as guidance packages, communications links, and ground control stations.
Where this is heading
The architecture for a formal drone-export agreement is being assembled in stages rather than unveiled in a single announcement. Diplomatic talks have defined the strategic intent. The economic partnership memorandum has created a legal umbrella. Corporate LOIs are testing commercial feasibility. And Executive Order 14307 has shaped the regulatory terrain on the American side.
Until the full text of a drone-specific memorandum is published, the picture remains incomplete. But the direction is visible in every document that has entered the public record: deeper integration of Ukraine’s combat-proven drone industry with U.S. and NATO defense supply chains. For allied militaries watching the war in Ukraine reshape modern warfare, the question is no longer whether Ukrainian drones will reach Western arsenals, but how quickly the paperwork catches up with the demand.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
