RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. The United States has opened a formal route for Ukrainian combat drones to enter Pentagon testing, offering Washington a chance to learn how Kyiv builds and replaces weapons at the speed modern wars consume them.
Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Olha Stefanishyna confirmed both parties last week signed a bilateral statement of intent that could form the basis of future export deals and joint production of Ukrainian-designed systems stateside.
Just a few months of intermittent skirmishes with Iran have exposed the limits of the U.S. military’s exquisite (read: very expensive and difficult to replace) arsenal. Meanwhile, years of fighting for its existence have turned Ukraine into a world-leading innovator of highly capable military technology that can also be produced at scale. Pressure creates diamonds, as they say.
Perhaps this new agreement will help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to show the White House just how valuable his nation really is. But Kyiv’s drone manufacturers must not give up their trump card for nothing in return .
The U.S. has inflicted extensive damage on Iranian missile bases and key infrastructure since launching its campaign in February, and has shot down large numbers of Iranian missiles and drones. Now Washington’s stocks of key munitions are running dangerously low.
The military has exhausted more than two-thirds of its prewar stock of Patriot air defense missiles, and almost half of its THAAD interceptors since February, according to estimates published this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Further fighting, it warned, could force Washington and its partners to become more selective about which incoming threats they attempt to destroy.
Patriot and THAAD interceptors perform missions that Ukraine’s array of small drones cannot. Ballistic missiles heading toward an air base or population center still require sophisticated defenses.
However, shooting down cheap drones with a multimillion-dollar missiles—or using multimillion-dollar missiles to deliver a strike of which a one-way drone worth $50,000 is capable—is simply not sustainable. A single Patriot missile costs about $4 million and two years to make. The U.S. has fired well over a thousand of them in the past five months.
Ukraine figured out that arithmetic early in Russia’s full-scale invasion. Moscow had more missiles, artillery shells, industrial capacity and money. Kyiv could not afford to answer every Russian weapon with an equally expensive Western one.
Instead, its forces and manufacturers developed layers of cheaper systems: first-person-view attack drones, long-range one-way aircraft, maritime drones and interceptors designed to destroy Russian unmanned aircraft. Because of the speed at which Russian forces develop countermeasures, Kyiv’s engineers are also adept at iterating and deploying new versions of their tech to maintain a battlefield edge.
The U.S. spent $916.6 billion on national defense last year. Ukraine spent less than a tenth of that—$84.1 billion—while locked in a full-scale war with Russia.
The Pentagon recognizes it has a problem.
One plan to address it is the Drone Dominance program, which has earmarked more than $1 billion to procure hundreds of thousands of cheap but effective attack drones by 2027. Other programs aim to expand U.S. production of unmanned systems. All of them will be compared against the best of what Ukraine has to offer.
Kyiv’s technology is the product of years of refinement in the most responsive feedback loop possible. Its manufacturers work directly with front-line units, adjust designs as Russian countermeasures evolve and deliver them to soldiers for immediate testing.
That unique experience could help U.S. companies cut unnecessary specifications, speed up development and build weapons suited to high-intensity war rather than peacetime procurement cycles. With the conflict in the Middle East showing no signs of abating, the value of what Ukraine has to offer is difficult to overstate.
After years of trying to convince the Trump administration and the more cagey elements of the GOP that Ukraine is more than just a drain on American finances, perhaps Zelensky has finally found a deal that his counterpart in the Oval Office cannot refuse.
Ukraine already has much more robust arrangements with other allies, including the U.K., Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada, who have committed to fund the production of Ukrainian drones both inside Ukraine and through offshore joint ventures. The allies bypass years of sluggish R&D cycles to gain immediate, direct access to battle-tested autonomous technology, while Kyiv gets even more drones to use on the battlefield and more money to expand its defense industry.
Washington has offered nothing of the sort. We have not yet seen the full text of the statement of intent, but it appears to be little more than an initial agreement to test Ukrainian technology, with no binding procurement, licensing or joint manufacturing deals.
Ukrainian firms have spent years developing software, designs and production methods perfectly tailored to meet the demands of modern warfare. One may suspect the American government and its deep-pocketed defense contractors aren’t below ripping off Kyiv’s intellectual property for their own gain.
The Pentagon needs Ukraine’s experience, and Ukraine needs American resources. A fair deal can serve both; a giveaway would allow Washington to copy Kyiv’s advantages and leave its creators behind.
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