The U.S. Pentagon is trialing attack drones for new contracts that should total $1.1 billion, inviting two Ukrainian drone makers to take part.

A Feb. 3 notice listed 25 companies invited to take part in a competition as the intro to the “Drone Dominance Program.”

One of the firms invited is General Cherry, in Ukrainian known as Heneral Chereshnya, one of the largest producers of first-person view (FPV) drones in the country, though its sudden rise over 2025 attracted extensive scrutiny.

Another seemingly Ukrainian firm selected is “Ukrainian Defense Drones Tech Corp,” but the Kyiv Independent could find no record of an entity by that name in corporate registries in the U.S., Ukraine or EU.

Round one will consist of a competition called “The Gauntlet” in Fort Benning, Georgia, the largest Army training facility in the U.S. and home of, among a number of relevant units, the Expeditionary Warrior Experiment, which has spent recent years testing new drone technologies.

Following the first phase, the Pentagon says it will order $150 million in prototypes from successful competitors.

The budget is $1.1 billion across all four phases in pursuit of what the Pentagon termed “competitive, iterative cycles measured in months, not years.”

Read also: Pentagon has quietly barred Ukrainian long-range strikes in Russia with US missiles, WSJ reports

From The Kyiv Independent - News from Ukraine, Eastern Europe via this RSS feed