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President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat down together on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8, and what came out of that meeting was something few predicted six months ago: a genuine warming of relations between Washington and Kyiv.
Trump announced that the US would grant licensing arrangements allowing Ukraine to manufacture advanced Patriot air defense systems. Then he went further, declaring that America would purchase drones built by Ukraine. “We would buy their drones,” Trump said, turning what was supposed to be a diplomatic handshake into something closer to a procurement meeting.
Ukraine has been fighting Russia for more than four years. Just a day before the Ankara summit, Kyiv finalized drone procurement agreements with three European nations: Estonia, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Ukraine isn’t just buying drones anymore. It’s becoming a drone exporter, and the US just signaled it wants to be a customer.
Discussions about joint US-Ukraine drone production stretch back to 2025, when both sides began exploring collaborative defense technology ventures. What was once a vague notion of partnership has now materialized into concrete commercial interest from the world’s largest defense buyer.
The ongoing Russian missile and drone assaults on Ukrainian cities, including attacks that caused casualties in Kyiv in recent weeks, add urgency to these arrangements. This isn’t theoretical defense planning. It’s wartime procurement with immediate operational requirements.
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