Ukrainian arms maker F-Drones has announced its first shipment of 2,000 F10 strike unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the US under a Pentagon contract, Defender Media reported, citing a company representative.
Ukraine’s State Export Control Service issued the permit on Wednesday for a batch of F10 strike drones bound for the US market, marking the first authorized export of finished combat drones to another continent.
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“The permit works – the drones have already crossed the state border,” Defender Media quoted the company’s representative as saying.
According to F-Drones, this is the first case in which Ukraine has officially cleared the export of ready-made combat drones manufactured in Ukraine. The company secured the permit before new government decisions simplifying the export of military goods under martial law took effect.
Previous decisions of this kind mostly covered individual technologies, components, or parts.
Following this, F-Drones passed the full approval cycle within the existing export control mechanism and received approval from the interagency commission on military-technical cooperation and export control policy.
The state-owned company Spetstechnoexport accompanied the procedure, with the contract stemming from the first phase of the US Drone Dominance program.
New export mechanism
Ukraine’s government approved its first transparent mechanism to export Ukrainian-made weapons and defense technologies to its allies on July 1.
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Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, in an update issued the day after the approval, said the mechanism will allow partners in the Drone Deal framework, or countries with relevant intergovernmental agreements with Kyiv, to purchase Ukrainian weapons and work directly with domestic manufacturers.
Under the new rules, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will determine the list of eligible partner states, while the Ministry of Defense, with help from other authorized bodies, will identify critical goods barred from export.
Prior to this announcement, President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Danish Defense Minister Jeppe Bruus in Kyiv on June 26 to finalize a drone cooperation agreement, one of the first deals expected to operate under the new export mechanism.
Zelensky said the agreement is “almost ready” and expressed hope it could be signed in the near future, as both countries also discussed deepening cooperation on European anti-ballistic missile defenses.
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