KYIV, Ukraine — The United States is already testing Ukrainian-made aerial and maritime drones and has given Kyiv “very positive feedback,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday, the clearest sign yet that a long-stalled drone-production deal with Washington worth billions is moving ahead.
The confirmation came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Ankara pledged the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to build its own Patriot interceptors, a long-sought goal for Kyiv as a global shortage of the missiles and intensifying Russian strikes leave its cities exposed.
Zelenskyy stopped short of tying the license to the multibillion-dollar drone deal, presenting the two as separate tracks working towards the same general goals.
“There are some documents that have already been signed so that the American side can receive from Ukraine various types of systems in which the United States is interested for testing,” Zelenskyy said in response to a question by Military Times.
“And they are receiving these from us.”
Kyiv pitched the multibillion-dollar drone partnership to Washington more than a year ago and has waited for a sign-off that never came, with U.S. officials publicly cool on it as recently as last month.
Zelenskyy’s account that the testing is underway and going well is the first real movement on the deal in months.
He named “aerial drones, maritime drones and other technological items” as the systems already changing hands.
“That testing is now underway, and that we are receiving very positive feedback, is a fact,” he said. “After this, we will move to another, next stage, to the drone deal.”
The full drone deal, a partnership Zelenskyy has valued at $35 billion to $50 billion, would reportedly set up a 50-50 production venture with the U.S. drawing on up to 200 Ukrainian companies.
But that deal remains unsigned, held up for months awaiting Trump’s approval.
Zelenskyy pointed to Ukraine’s wartime standing, calling its defense industry “at NATO level, and already one of the best” and saying Kyiv is “ready to share our own development and technologies.”
Days before the summit, the cost of the shortage was written in the rubble of Kyiv after Russia fired 68 missiles and 351 drones at Ukraine overnight, according to Ukrainian Air Force officials.
The shortage that makes a Ukrainian Patriot line so appealing sharpened this spring, when the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran burned through American interceptor stocks.
Gulf defenses fired as many as 1,430 Patriot interceptors in 39 days, a CSIS analysis found, draining inventories Ukraine had counted on.
By late April, Ukrainian crews were rationing mid-attack, firing one interceptor at incoming ballistics instead of the standard two to four to stretch what remained.
Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said the Patriot force was down to a “starvation ration,” according to Euromaidan.
Even while minimizing the use of interceptors, Ukrainian air defenses downed roughly 92% of the Shaheds Russia launched in May, according to the Air Force, and cheap interceptor drones now do more of that work.
Ukraine built 100,000 of those drones in 2025 and doubled the pace in the first four months of 2026.
By the time Zelenskyy proposed a formal “Drone Deal Initiative” at NATO’s Ankara summit on July 7, several countries had already signed bilateral drone agreements with Kyiv.
He also arrived with a NATO intelligence assessment endorsed by all 32 members that Russia could invade a member state by 2029.
Ukraine’s mission chief to NATO, Alyona Getmanchuk, told allies in Brussels on July 2 that Ukraine helps guide the alliance’s only joint center, red-teams its war games and has a record number of members backing its membership.
She cast Ukraine not as an aid recipient, but as the only NATO partner actually implementing the alliance’s Strategic Concept and backed by drone-export permits, testing deals and combat-proven systems.
The Patriot license and the drone testing deal are the first fruits of a budding relationship between equals, officials hope.
“Everyone respects our army, everyone respects the country, everyone respects our technology companies,” Zelensky noted. “We are ready to share our own development and technologies.”
Katie Livingstone is the Ukraine correspondent for Defense News and Military Times. Based in Kyiv, she has covered Russia’s full-scale invasion since its first days. She is a former Fulbright fellow whose award-winning work has appeared in outlets across Europe and the U.S.