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← Weapons Procurement & Supply Lines

Ukraine's Defence Industry

Ukraine is now licensing its arms makers to sell abroad, though little has visibly shipped. Its export-control commission says 18 companies hold permits to sell finished weapons, and by October 15 it counted more than 20 approved applications to export finished products, some to countries in Kyiv’s “Drone Deal” partnerships. Most of the more than 450 applications it has reviewed since February were for components or repairs. These are the commission’s counts of permits: no buyer, quantity or value has been published, and in August the industry council counted no more than ten small private export contracts.

The direction of supply keeps edging outward. Canada’s Dominion Dynamics and Ukraine’s Tencore signed a memorandum on October 13 to build Tencore’s ground robots in Ontario; it is not yet a contract. F-Drones says the US military has ordered 1,320 more of its F10 strike drones, due by the end of November — the company’s account, unconfirmed by the Pentagon.

At home, the defence ministry says drone deliveries this year are almost 3.7 times last year’s. It counts state purchases rather than national output, and published no unit counts.

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The whole story4 chapters
The state of it — as of October 17, 2026
3.7×
drones delivered to Ukraine’s state buyer this year against last, on the ministry’s count
2,000
Ukrainian strike drones delivered to the US military, the first cleared for export there
10
small private arms-export contracts in the first year after exports reopened

Today

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Right now, we could produce two or three times more drones – depending on the type. But we simply don't have enough money for that.

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Not yet checked

Unverified. No figures for Ukraine’s spare drone capacity have been published to test it; the defence ministry’s own counts measure state purchases, not what factories could make.

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Earlier this month

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A Ukrainian Ground Robot, to Be Built in Canada

Canada’s Dominion Dynamics and Ukraine’s Tencore signed a memorandum on October 13 to build Tencore’s uncrewed ground vehicles at Dominion’s plant in Kanata, Ontario, for Ukraine’s army. It is not a contract: a definitive agreement is aimed for the first quarter of 2027, and the plan still needs a Ukrainian export licence for the technology and Canadian government money to buy the vehicles. The direction is the news — a Ukrainian design going abroad for production.

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Drone Deliveries Up Almost Fourfold, on the Ministry’s Count

Ukraine’s defence ministry said on October 11 that its procurement agency has contracted 5.5 times as many drones in 2026 as in the same period of 2025, and that deliveries have risen almost 3.7 times; it has ordered and received more this year than in all of last. It published no unit counts. The figures measure state purchasing, not national output.

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Eighteen Ukrainian Makers Cleared to Sell Finished Weapons Abroad

Ukraine’s export-control commission says 18 Ukrainian companies now hold permits to sell finished weapons abroad, and that it has processed more than 400 export applications since February, approving over 90 per cent. By October 15 its head, Davyd Aloian, put the count at more than 450 applications, most for components or repairs rather than finished products, and more than 20 approvals to export finished products, some to countries in Kyiv’s “Drone Deal” partnerships. These are the commission’s own counts of permits, not deliveries: no buyer, quantity or value has been published. Aloian says deliveries under the Drone Deals have begun, without naming a country.

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The Pentagon Orders 1,320 More Ukrainian Drones

The Ukrainian manufacturer F-Drones says the US military has ordered a further 1,320 of its F10 strike drones under the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance programme, due by the end of November. The first 2,000 were shipped in July. The account is the company’s, relayed by the Ukrainian defence outlet Militarnyi: the Pentagon has not confirmed it, no value is given, and the Ukrainian export authorisation for this batch had not yet been issued when it was reported.

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This quarter

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Ukraine’s Arms Industry Grew Tenfold, and Says Nobody in Government Owns It

The Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry, an alliance of more than 400 companies chaired by presidential adviser Oleksandr Kamyshyn, asked the government on 5 September to create a single state body with real authority over defence-industrial policy. Since the Ministry of Strategic Industries was folded into the Defence Ministry in July 2025, the council says the functions sit split across six institutions, none accountable for scaling production or opening export markets. It is not asking for the old ministry back. Scale, on industry estimates: top market segments doubled to $6.8 billion in 2025, roughly 300,000 employed.

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A Year After Kyiv Reopened Arms Exports, Ten Small Contracts Have Been Signed

Ihor Fedirko of the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry says the private defence sector has secured no more than ten small export contracts since controlled exports resumed last year, with one overseas joint venture operating and no permits at all issued under Resolution No. 875, July's simplified wartime procedure. He blames its terms: 20 percent of a contract's value payable up front (30 for components) with no clear refund if refused; a 15 million hryvnia floor that excludes the small pilot orders buyers place first; and a 30-day state pre-emption the defence ministry need not honour with a purchase. Revisions were expected in early September. The Security Council puts potential output at $55 billion this year against $35 billion in 2025.

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Ukraine Is Now Building Its Drones in Finland, Mostly for Europe

The supply line has started running the other way. Ukrainian manufacturer General Cherry told Janes on August 24 that production of its Bullet interceptor and Air Speed FPV drones is already under way in Finland, a day after signing a letter of intent with the Finnish state defence company Patria. A General Cherry representative said the Finnish output is "mostly for the European Union"; Patria said the work is focused on Western European defence requirements and would not give volumes. The arrangement runs under the Build with Ukraine initiative and a Ukrainian mechanism approved on 1 July giving Drone Deal partners direct contracts with Ukrainian manufacturers. Finland and Ukraine separately signed three cooperation documents on drones, maritime unmanned systems and ground robots during President Stubb's Kyiv visit, and Stubb said most of that output would go to Ukraine — the opposite direction to the line already running.

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Britain Hands Over the Storm Shadow Blueprints, and Stops Buying the Missile Itself

Britain is giving Ukraine the classified designs for the British-French Storm Shadow cruise missile so Kyiv can build it at home, following France, in a transfer made during a visit to Kyiv on 24 August. Both countries have already supplied the missile and Ukraine has fired it into Russia. The limits matter as much as the gesture: the design is from the 1990s, each round costs about £1 million, the supply chain is global, and peacetime output ran in the hundreds — Ukraine could need months or years to produce its own. The IISS's Douglas Barrie called the sharing notable while tying its impact to how fast local assembly starts. Britain, meanwhile, has stopped buying Storm Shadow for itself: under Project Brakestop it is building a cruise missile with no foreign components at under half the price, hoped ready by December and promised to Ukraine.

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A Ukrainian Arms Maker Buys Into NATO Soil, and Will Build Its Shells in Lithuania

Lithuania’s economy ministry signed a large-project investment contract on 14 August with DEMZ, the Dnipro Electromechanical Plant, to build NATO-standard ammunition in Lithuania — the first time a Ukrainian arms maker has planted its own capacity inside the alliance. Assembly is planned on a 30.6-hectare state plot in Prienai district and component manufacturing in the Alytus industrial park, where the investment is put at €70 million; up to 450 jobs are foreseen. Construction starts this autumn and production is planned for the end of 2027, first for Ukraine’s own forces. Lithuania’s defence ministry signed a letter of intent alongside. DEMZ employs more than 4,000 people; its 2025 revenue rose 47 per cent to 9.12 billion hryvnia, about €180 million. What has been signed is a contract and a site, not a shell: nothing is built yet.

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It's not that the production capacity of Ukrainian manufacturers doesn't allow us to make the necessary quantities. It's the banal problem of untimely financing, which our partners do allocate, but which moves significantly slower than our plans.

— Robert "Magyar" Brovdi Mixed

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Ukraine Delivers Its First Drones to the US Military

The Ukrainian company F-Drones has delivered all 2,000 of its F10 first-person-view strike drones to the US military — the first Ukrainian drone cleared for export to the United States — through its American partner, Ukrainian Defense Drones Tech Corp. The delivery, reported by Stars and Stripes, completes an order won in the Pentagon's $1 billion Drone Dominance program, a drive to procure more than 200,000 low-cost attack drones for US forces by 2027; the F10 finished sixth of 25 vendors in the program's Fort Benning evaluation early in 2026, and the top eleven shared roughly $150 million in prototype orders. F-Drones plans to open a US assembly plant in Holland, Ohio by the end of 2029. It is the clearest concrete marker yet of the war's supply reversal: a country that four years ago could not import enough finished weapons is now shipping battle-proven ones to the ally that once armed it.

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Brave1 Market Hits $1 Billion in Troop Orders in Its First Year

Ukraine's Defence Forces have placed about $1 billion in equipment orders through Brave1 Market, the state defence-technology marketplace, in its first year of operation, the Ministry of Defence said. More than 400 units received roughly 500,000 drones, unmanned ground vehicles and electronic-warfare and reconnaissance systems, which combat commanders selected themselves using ePoints earned for verified combat missions rather than drawing from a centrally-directed supply chain. Delivery times for in-stock items have fallen to about seven days, and June 2026 — with orders above 5 billion hryvnia — was the largest month since the scheme launched on 1 August 2025. It is the measured, one-year result of the December 2024 decision to give brigades their own procurement budgets, and a marker of how much of Ukraine's supply now flows through its own domestic industry.

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Pentagon Puts Ukrainian Drones Through Trials, Eyeing Joint Production

Six Ukrainian drone manufacturers, including F-Drones which delivered 2,000 F10 FPV models for testing, are participating in the Pentagon's Drone Dominance program trials. The initiative is a formal pathway to evaluate Ukrainian unmanned systems with the ultimate objective of establishing joint production lines in the United States — a requirement for the Ukrainian firms to receive future Pentagon orders. The arrangement clarifies the nature of Ukraine's drone 'exports' to the US: Washington is testing them rather than buying them for long-term supply, seeking to localize the manufacturing capacity built through four years of battlefield iteration.

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Britain Hands Over the Rights to Build 'Stone Cloak'

Britain announced during Zelensky’s visit to Portsmouth Naval Base that it will give Ukraine the intellectual property behind ‘Stone Cloak’ — tablet-sized jammers fitted to drones to hide them from Russian air defences — so Ukraine can manufacture them itself at scale. Britain has already supplied thousands of the units, so this is a shift from gifting a device to handing over the right to build it. No signed instrument, value, quantity or production timeline appeared in any account, and the verbs differ: PBS said the UK ‘will give’ the IP, the BBC that it ‘announced the sharing of’ it.

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Earlier this year

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