Dmytro Kuleba calls the drone-as-new-oil metaphor right but unstable. Oil is geology, and Ukraine cannot teach the world to grow titanium, so the deposit remains a permanent asset to trade away. A drone is a design and a production line, and both can be copied.
The Metaphor and Its Leak
A drone is a commodity. The data from a million frontline sorties is not. Dmytro Kuleba calls the "new oil" metaphor right but unstable, because drones can be learned and built, unlike mineral deposits.
The durable asset is the ecosystem: the software, the tactics, the accumulated combat experience, and the usage data that no foreign factory can copy from a spec sheet. Ukraine's economy is shifting from selling raw hardware to selling turnkey solutions such as "closing the sky," a product-service model. Hardware depreciates and leaks abroad; the knowledge of how to use it under real electronic warfare does not.
Drones are not oil. Oil sits in the ground whether or not anyone learns to refine it. A drone design can be copied. A factory can be rebuilt abroad. The leak is already visible: Ukrainian companies quietly build projects overseas, teaching the technology away. What cannot be copied is the data from front-line use, the software, the tactics, the whole ecosystem around employment.
From Resource to Product
Selling airframes is selling raw material, priced per unit by whoever buys. Selling a closed sky is selling a product: sensors, interceptors, command software, operators, and the doctrine that ties them together, delivered as one working system. The economy moves from resource to product and service.
The warning stands. Drones can be learned, so the market stays open to new competitors, unlike titanium or lithium. The value has to be defended through execution, not assumed through geology.
Drones can be learned, so the market stays open to new competitors, unlike titanium or lithium.
The Export Monopoly That Leaks
Kyiv holds the formal monopoly on export decisions. But the market has already voted with its feet. Ukrainian drone companies are quietly building projects abroad, transferring the technology into foreign jurisdictions where the decision monopoly cannot reach.
Kuleba's warning is precise: the export-decision monopoly "is already being violated." That matters. Drones, unlike oil, can be learned and produced by anyone, so a monopoly that leaks is no monopoly at all.
The real long-term asset is the data from frontline use, the ecosystem, the software, and the tactics. If production migrates abroad, that ecosystem migrates with it. The lesson: convert the technology into product-service exports under fair partnership terms, so the value stays anchored in Ukraine instead of leaking out through quiet side deals.
A Contract, Not a Concession
A partnership means a contract, not a concession. Ukraine holds Europe's largest lithium and titanium reserves. The offer on the table is a joint fund through which partners invest and share the returns. What it includes is a transfer of title.
The deposits stay on Ukrainian books, governed by Ukrainian law. The fund exists to finance extraction and processing rather than to hand over the ground itself. The distinction matters because the alternative model is already visible: Moscow sits on occupied deposits and sanctions its own supply chains, turning resource-rich territory into a war zone instead of a production site.
Kyiv's terms are the opposite. Partners bring capital, technology, and offtake agreements; Ukraine brings the resource, the workforce, and a legal framework that protects the investor's share. Profit is welcome. Ownership is not for sale.