The Strategic Unmanned Systems Partnership Act would create a working group with the Armed Forces of Ukraine to identify, co develop, and acquire Ukrainian unmanned systems and counter drone technology.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and bipartisan co-sponsors introduced legislation on June 30 that would position the Pentagon as a buyer rather than donor of Ukrainian unmanned systems. The Strategic Unmanned Systems Partnership Act, H.R. 9550 would direct the Defense Department to stand up a working group alongside the Armed Forces of Ukraine to identify, co-develop, and acquire Ukrainian unmanned systems and counter-drone technology.
U.S. military aid to Kyiv has, throughout the war, flowed outward. Washington has been sending weapons rather than buying them back. A formal inbound procurement lane for Ukrainian-designed systems has not existed. The working group would create one.
The bill's bipartisan roster spans both parties: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), and Don Bacon (R-Neb.). A Senate companion, S. 4711, is in the parallel chamber.
The list of covered technologies is long. Unmanned aircraft, surface vehicles, and underwater vehicles; electronic warfare systems; and counter-drone capabilities all fall inside the working group's scope. The mandate is narrower: identify what Ukraine has built, assess it against U.S. requirements, and recommend acquisition paths back to the Pentagon. The bill authorizes no specific dollar amount and no individual contract.
Traditional U.S. defense procurement operates on multi-year timelines. Ukraine's drone industry has shipped and revised new airframes, guidance packages, and counter-drone systems on cycles measured in months. The working group is meant to shorten the distance between those two clocks without rewriting formal acquisition law.
The working group would establish a structured inbound channel for wartime drone and counter-drone designs, the formal reversal of the usual flow of U.S. defense technology. The group's composition reflects that intent. Defense officials and Ukrainian Armed Forces counterparts, paired with U.S. and Ukrainian industry, allied partners, and relevant federal agencies, would all sit at the same table. Acquisition, operational, and industrial voices would run in parallel rather than sequentially, so a promising design can be assessed, matched to a U.S. program, and contracted without each step requiring a fresh authorization from a separate office. Co-development could include joint prototyping with U.S. firms, integration of Ukrainian subsystems into U.S. platforms, or licensed production of Ukrainian designs by American manufacturers. The working group's output under the bill would take a specific form: written recommendations identifying which Ukrainian systems merit further evaluation, which U.S. programs could absorb them, and which contracting pathway fits each.
Rep. Kaptur and co-sponsors framed the bill as a way to lock in wartime lessons before they fade, according to a joint press release from her office. The House Ukraine Caucus, in a separate release led by Rep. Quigley, called the working group a way to operationalize battlefield innovation into U.S. programs. Rep. McCaul's release framed the legislation as strengthening both the Ukrainian battlefield and the U.S. industrial base.
Committee referral comes first: the House bill now sits with Armed Services and Foreign Affairs, while the Senate companion has its own path. Pentagon posture matters next: the Defense Department has not publicly endorsed or opposed the approach, and any formal statement will shape the working group's standing. The policy backdrop is the third variable: continued aid to Ukraine remains the subject of recurring congressional debate, and the working group's existence depends on that broader framework staying intact.
The working group's recommendations would flow back into standard Pentagon acquisition channels, where any specific contract would still require the steps the bill leaves untouched. The legislation constructs the pipeline. It does not write any checks.