The Pentagon Finally Looks to Ukraine for Its Drone Swarms

A partnership that flips the usual roles

According to an article published on July 1, 2026, by journalist David Hambling in Forbes, the American company Powerus has partnered with the Ukrainian company Swarmer to develop drone swarm control technology for the Pentagon's program to modernize its combat drone fleet.

This partnership illustrates a notable reversal of the usual military technology transfer dynamics: it is no longer just the West equipping Ukraine, it is now the Pentagon coming to seek out Ukrainian expertise earned on the most intense battlefield in Europe in decades.

The Drone Dominance program in the background

This partnership falls under the Pentagon's Drone Dominance Program, backed by a 1.1 billion dollar budget and created under presidential executive order 14307, which has already drawn participation from 48 American and allied companies in the race to produce low-cost drones.

This government initiative explicitly aims to close the American gap in combat drone production, a sector where the United States currently produces only about 50,000 drones per year, a paltry figure compared to the millions of units produced annually by Russia and Ukraine combined.

A hundred thousand combat missions already flown

The Ukrainian company Swarmer, founded in May 2023 and based in Austin, Texas, while actively operating in Ukraine, has seen its swarm control technology fly more than 100,000 combat missions since April 2024, a volume of operational experience no Western company has been able to accumulate under such extreme conditions.

This massive combat experience gives Swarmer a technical credibility that is hard to match, its swarm coordination algorithms having been tested, adjusted and improved in real time against the most sophisticated Russian electronic countermeasures deployed on the battlefield.

A company recently listed on the stock market

A sign of the growing maturity of Ukraine's defense industry, Swarmer went public on the Nasdaq in 2026, a move that reflects growing confidence among Western investors in Ukrainian military technology companies born directly from the experience of the conflict.

This stock market listing also allows Swarmer to raise additional capital to accelerate the development of its technology, while giving Western investors a concrete opportunity to financially support Ukrainian military innovation born from the war against Russia.

A company backed by influential political figures

The American company Powerus, led by Brett Velicovich, a former Delta Force member, benefits from the financial backing of notable political figures, including Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as a 30 million dollar investment from the company Unusual Machines.

This political connection between Powerus and the American presidential inner circle illustrates the growing overlap between private commercial interests and the current administration's military strategic priorities, a dynamic worth watching closely without necessarily calling into question the real military value of the partnership with Ukraine.

Interceptors already used by American special forces

Beyond this partnership with Swarmer, Powerus already sells drone interception systems called Guardian, currently used by United States Air Force special operations units, confirming the operational credibility this company has already established in the counter-drone defense sector.

This prior credibility of Powerus in drone interception strengthens the strategic relevance of its partnership with Swarmer, now combining proven defensive expertise with offensive swarm expertise drawn directly from the Ukrainian battlefield.

Auterion, the only other comparable player

According to reporting from Forbes, the company Auterion currently remains the only other player in the sector capable of offering swarm control capability comparable to what the Powerus-Swarmer partnership provides, a rarity that underscores the technological lead Ukraine has acquired in this specific field.

This limited competition gives the Powerus-Swarmer partnership an advantageous strategic position within the Pentagon's Drone Dominance program, where few other candidates among the 48 participating companies can claim such extensive and documented combat experience.

The ambitious goal of the 5,000-dollar drone

The Pentagon's program explicitly aims to reduce the unit cost of combat drones to about 5,000 dollars each, an ambitious goal that requires low-cost mass production, an industrial model where Ukraine's experience with fast, economical production proves particularly valuable.

This price target reflects an implicit acknowledgment by the Pentagon that future military superiority in this field will depend less on the individual sophistication of each device than on the ability to produce and deploy massive volumes of low-cost drones, exactly as the war in Ukraine has demonstrated.

The Tryzub system that shoots down Shaheds for a few dollars

Alongside this swarm technology, Ukraine is also developing a laser air defense system called Tryzub, developed by the company Celebra Tech, capable of neutralizing Russian Shahed drones at a distance of more than three miles, for a cost of about 13 dollars per shot.

This negligible cost per interception contrasts sharply with that of traditional interceptor missiles, which can cost between 100,000 dollars and 3 million dollars per unit, an economic difference that could fundamentally transform the strategic equation of Western air defense.

An innovation that also interests the Pentagon

This Ukrainian laser technology, just like Swarmer's swarm control technology, confirms that Ukraine has become a genuine real-time military innovation laboratory, producing technological solutions that even the most advanced Western defense industries had not anticipated with such operational maturity.

American Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has, moreover, sent Pentagon officials to directly observe drone warfare techniques in Ukraine, confirming the American administration's official interest in these conflict-born innovations.

A position of world leadership earned through pain

This Pentagon recognition of Ukrainian drone expertise confirms a reality already documented by several Western military analysts: Ukraine now holds an undisputed position as world leader in drone-related military innovation, a position earned at a considerable human and material cost.

This expertise, forged directly on the battlefield against the Russian army, far exceeds what any theoretical Western research program could have produced in peacetime, confirming the old adage that necessity often remains the mother of the most radical innovation.

A diplomatic and economic asset for Kyiv

Beyond its immediate military value, this Ukrainian technological expertise is also becoming a significant diplomatic and economic asset for Kyiv, strengthening its position in negotiations with its Western allies and opening new technology export prospects for Ukraine's postwar defense industry.

This dynamic confirms that Western support for Ukraine is no longer limited to a simple one-way assistance relationship, but is gradually evolving into a mutually beneficial technological partnership, where Ukraine now brings expertise the West itself does not yet possess at the same scale.

Closing a critical gap against strategic rivals

This partnership between Powerus and Swarmer is part of a broader Pentagon effort to close a critical gap in drone production, a field where China and Russia have built considerable industrial capacity that the United States must now quickly catch up on.

This technological race for autonomous drone swarms represents a major deterrence issue for the West, since the ability to quickly produce and deploy massive volumes of cheap drones could become a decisive factor in any future conflict involving Western powers.

A clear signal sent to Moscow and Beijing

By actively integrating Ukrainian expertise into its own military development programs, the Pentagon is sending a clear strategic signal to its rivals: the West is not merely passively supporting Ukraine, it is actively capitalizing on lessons learned to strengthen its own long-term deterrence posture.

This pragmatic and rapid approach to technological integration is exactly the kind of strategic responsiveness the West needs to keep its edge against rivals like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, who themselves do not hesitate to collaborate militarily with one another.

Ethical questions that remain unresolved

This accelerated race toward increasingly autonomous drone swarms also raises important ethical questions about the level of human control needed before an autonomous weapons system can engage a target, questions the Pentagon will absolutely have to resolve before any large-scale deployment.

This ethical reflection, though sometimes seen as a brake on rapid military innovation, remains essential for the West to preserve its moral legitimacy against strategic rivals who often impose no comparable ethical constraints on their own military programs.

A technological dependency that calls for caution

Caution is also warranted regarding the risk of excessive dependence on a small number of companies like Powerus and Swarmer for such a strategic military capability, a concentration that could create vulnerabilities should these companies face future financial or operational difficulties.

This necessary caution should not, however, prevent the Pentagon from actively pursuing this promising partnership, but should instead encourage a gradual diversification of the technology partners involved in the Drone Dominance program over the longer term.

The Pentagon must keep learning from Kyiv

This partnership between Powerus and Swarmer, however modest it may seem compared to major traditional weapons programs, illustrates an important strategic recognition: Ukraine has become, through three years of brutal war against Russia, a global center of excellence in drone-related military innovation.

The Pentagon is right to actively seek to integrate this expertise into its own future capabilities, an act of strategic humility that could prove decisive in maintaining Western military superiority against increasingly coordinated and determined rivals.

A partnership to watch closely in the months ahead

The evolution of this partnership, along with the concrete results it produces within the Pentagon's Drone Dominance program, will deserve continued attention, both for its direct military implications and for what it reveals about the changing relationship between Ukraine and its Western allies.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

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