Two Ukrainian drone manufacturers entered the field for the Pentagon Drone Dominance Phase 2 Gauntlet, confirmed on 3 June, with one named as a partner of Phase 1 leader Skycutter 1. Drone Dominance is the Pentagon's $1.1bn programme to buy more than 300,000 one-way attack drones by 2027; the Gauntlet is its competitive proving ground, with Stage 1 at Camp Grayling, Michigan.
Skycutter, the London-based startup, won Phase 1 outright flying a Ukrainian-built Shrike 10 Fibre FPV (first-person-view) drone. The two new Ukrainian entrants extend that combat lineage directly into the US field. They arrive as the programme stops looking startup-only: Northrop Grumman was named a preferred payload provider in May, tasked with arming the FPV fleet .
Northrop's payload role reshapes what a startup win is worth, because whoever defines the common payload shapes every airframe that follows, regardless of who builds it. For the Ukrainian firms, the question is whether competing inside the programme secures a procurement foothold that survives a future ceasefire, or whether the primes integrate them on the primes' terms.
