Despite freshly strained relations between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian defense tech companies are courting partnerships with U.S. manufacturers, investors and the Pentagon. The firms are betting that their battlefield-tested weapons could help shore up the countries’ shaky security partnership.
“The deeper we have integration of the industries, the better we are on the political level,” said Roman Tkachenko, co-founder of Tencore, a Ukrainian manufacturer of uncrewed ground vehicles.
Tkachenko was among representatives of 17 Ukrainian defense technology companies exhibiting quadcopters of various sizes, signal jammers and uncrewed ground vehicles at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington last week. It was the conference’s first dedicated Ukraine pavilion.
The push reflects Ukraine’s growing ambitions to become a supplier of military technology rather than simply a recipient of American aid. Kyiv has eased weapons export restrictions, sought joint drone production with the U.S. and discussed a deal in which the Pentagon would purchase Ukrainian-made drones that the two countries would co-produce.
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But the relationship hit another rough patch in recent days.
Trump announced a proposed deal this month to import Russian diesel, potentially providing billions of dollars to Russia’s economy. He also demanded that Ukraine stop attacking Russian oil refineries, strikes that have damaged Moscow’s energy industry and become an important part of Kyiv’s war effort.
Trump subsequently announced an energy ceasefire, but neither Russia nor Ukraine confirmed agreeing to the terms, and Russia continued attacking Ukraine’s infrastructure.
The tensions deepened Wednesday when Ukraine discovered new restrictions on its military-grade Starlink satellite terminals, prompting Ukrainian officials to suspect that Trump had ordered the limitations.
John Roberts, an American advising Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, said the uncertainty surrounding U.S. military supplies has forced Ukrainian commanders to scramble their battlefield plans.
“We have to fight with what we have, and sometimes we’re told we don’t have as much stuff coming next week,” Roberts said. “When we do our forecast, it means we have to change operations.”
That’s also made Ukraine more determined to reduce its dependence on foreign military aid, Roberts said.
“Ukrainians want to be self-sufficient,” he said.
Tkachenko’s company is seeking American manufacturing partners after establishing a joint venture with Germany’s Quantum Systems and another partnership in Finland. Tencore plans to produce 2,000 ground vehicles through the German partnership over the coming year.
“I cannot tell the politicians what to do,” Tkachenko said. “But what I can do — actually, I can do my job, and I hope that my job will help to make the connection between the countries stronger.”
Tkachenko said nearly 6,000 of his company’s uncrewed ground vehicles have been deployed along Ukraine’s front lines, transporting ammunition and supplies through areas too risky to send soldiers.
Tencore has repeatedly updated its vehicles based on feedback from those troops, the type of rapid adaptation the Pentagon says it wants to achieve.
American manufacturers remain years away from matching Ukraine’s drone production, which is expected to reach 6 million to 7 million small attack drones this year.
The Pentagon is seeking to rapidly fill that gap through its $1.1 billion Drone Dominance program, which has already attracted Ukrainian manufacturers. The program ordered 2,000 drones from Ukrainian Defense Drones, the American partner of Ukrainian manufacturer F-Drones.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also announced plans for a new four-star Autonomous Warfare Command and is pressing Congress to approve $50 billion for drones as part of a broader $350 billion defense spending package.
But converting Ukraine’s battlefield-tested weapons into products the Pentagon can buy is a challenge. Federal restrictions on the U.S. military’s use of Chinese-made drones and components — enshrined in the National Defense Authorization Act — complicate Ukrainian manufacturers’ efforts to enter the American market because many rely heavily on Chinese suppliers.
“We’ve learned a lot from Ukraine, but you can’t use everything that’s in Ukraine because of all the Chinese components involved in it,” Hegseth said on stage at the AUSA conference.
Ukrainian manufacturers at the conference told The Washington Sun that they are developing versions of their weapons that meet American requirements, though replacing Chinese parts could make them more expensive and harder to produce at scale.
David Hensley, co-founder of Fenicks Group, the American company that organized AUSA’s Ukraine pavilion, said the companies his firm represents offer export models without Chinese components.
“They’re all NDAA compliant,” Hensley said, adding that Ukrainian weapons are still cheaper than American products, despite the cost of replacing Chinese parts.
Bohdan Shtylyk, head of exports at Ukrainian drone manufacturer Stellarion, said eliminating Chinese components is possible but difficult because alternative suppliers cannot always meet the industry’s production needs.
“Not every factory can match that pace,” Shtylyk said.
He said Stellarion, which produces tens of thousands of drones each month, is investing heavily in versions designed to meet U.S. requirements.
Meta Bureau, another Ukrainian company, is preparing to compete for Pentagon business with a version of its SkyKnight reusable bomber drone that replaces Chinese-made components with alternatives that meet American requirements.
Yuri Hundych, the company’s chief commercial officer, said American companies at AUSA offered the company motors, software and other technologies for its drones.
The company was invited to enter SkyKnight in a Defense Department competition next month at Michigan’s Camp Grayling, where manufacturers will demonstrate systems for possible U.S. military purchase.
Ukraine, he predicted, will remain dependent on Chinese parts as long as they are cheaper. But he said he hopes allies can expand non-Chinese supply chains enough that alternative parts are comparably priced.
“Our conflict is going into its fifth year, and budgets are limited,” he said. “You need to count every penny and give our army and our soldiers these solutions as cheaply as possible and still try to [maintain] a high level of quality.”
Still, Maj. Gen. Duane Miller, a former deputy commanding general of Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, said the Pentagon has a lot to learn from the close relationships between Ukrainian companies that make weapons and the troops that use them.
That relationship allows Ukrainian manufacturers to regularly update their equipment based on battlefield experience, he said, comparing it to commercial smartphone software. By contrast, he said, the U.S. military has traditionally bought equipment, trained soldiers to use it and moved on.
“You can’t make changes in weeks and months. You’re going to have to do this in hours and days,” he said. “The enemy is constantly adapting. What I fear is that we’re not going to learn quickly enough.”
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