The Defense Procurement Agency has presented an updated drone procurement model for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to drone manufacturers, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
Now the AOZ will interact with the market through the following mechanisms:
· Direct contracts – for the purchase of unique or specialized drones.
Due to the strategic importance of procurement based on proven need, the agency is partially abandoning the existing approach. However, the focus will be on the procurement of unique and specialized equipment.
· Framework agreements – competitive bidding based on tactical and technical characteristics.
Those drones that have similar tactical and technical characteristics will be combined into frames (at the first stage these are FPV drones). This will allow for competitive procurement involving a wide range of manufacturers.
· DOT-Chain Defence – a drone marketplace where the military will independently choose the means they need.
Military units will have more freedom and will not receive funds solely based on centrally made decisions. According to the Ministry of Defense, this will reduce the process of drone delivery to a matter of weeks.
"During conversations with manufacturers and the military, we saw key barriers - opaque procedures, difficult access to participation, lack of dialogue. Therefore, we updated our approaches: we formed clear rules, simplified entry, and made the process predictable. This opens up the market the opportunity to scale, and the state - to quickly cover the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," explained Arsen Zhumadilov, director of AOZ.
Among the important innovations is the verification of suppliers for direct contracts. It helps to make sure that the company meets the basic requirements: it has no ties to the Russian Federation, Iran, and Belarus, and has sufficient production capacity and financial standing to fulfill contracts.
After passing verification, the supplier is included in the register, which allows you to reduce the time for future inspections and promptly receive requests for commercial offers from AOZ.
The processes are described in detail on the website of the Defense Procurement Agency.
Let us recall that as of May 2025, the Defense Procurement Agency has already concluded state contracts for 83% of the proven need for defense goods for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The AOZ also named the main areas in which state contracts have already been concluded as of May based on proven need: ground equipment (85%), ammunition (83%), and unmanned aerial vehicles (81%).