On Kyiv's Saint Michael's Square, Zelenskyy and von der Leyen signed a new joint drone production deal, with the EU immediately releasing 1 billion euros.
On July 15, Ukraine's Statehood Day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met on Kyiv's Saint Michael's Square to sign a new defense industrial partnership that von der Leyen described as "our very own Drone Deal." The agreement is built around pairing Ukraine's battle-tested drone expertise with the European Union's manufacturing base.
The European Commission confirmed the immediate release of 1 billion euros for drones, drawn from a wider 5.9-billion-euro defense support tranche that itself sits inside the 90-billion-euro Ukraine Support Loan. On top of that, the EU laid out a further 10-billion-euro funding plan: roughly 6 billion for drones, 1.5 billion for long-range missiles, and 2.5 billion for Gripen fighter jets. Up to another 10 billion euros could still come from the bloc's 150-billion-euro SAFE program for the new joint Defense Industrial Pact. Volunteers Support Ukraine notes that figures on this scale underline just how central drone output has become to the country's defense in 2026.
Under the deal, both sides aim to have joint drone and counter-drone production up and running before the end of the year, with joint anti-ballistic-missile manufacturing targeted for 2028. Von der Leyen said the EU brings "huge technological and industrial capacity" and "safe and secure production sites," while Ukraine supplies "battle-tested knowledge and expertise" that Europe simply doesn't have. She called Kyiv "a net security provider for Europe" — a line delivered on what was already her 11th official visit to the Ukrainian capital.
During the Saint Michael's Square ceremony, Zelenskyy presented von der Leyen with Ukraine's newly created Order of Europe, a state award recognizing contributions to the country's European future. The drone deal itself builds on a patchwork of earlier bilateral arrangements with individual European partners, now folded into one coherent framework meant to speed up joint drone manufacturing ventures on European soil. For the team at Volunteers Support Ukraine, it's another sign that the technological edge remains one of the decisive factors at this stage of the war.
The agreement lands at a moment when Ukraine already ranks among the world's leading producers of combat drones, a position built over more than four years of full-scale war. Volunteers Support Ukraine keeps helping people affected by the war in whatever way its available resources allow, and keeps a close eye on any initiative that could shorten the path to victory and ease the daily toll on civilians.
