TAF Industries signed a joint-venture memorandum with Danish firm Upteko for production but says bureaucracy is slowing the process. Meanwhile, Resist.UA agreed to invest in BlueShadow, a Danish maritime-defense startup whose founder commanded a US nuclear submarine and whose engineering team works largely in Ukraine, Defender Media reported.

Ukraine's defense industry has outgrown much of its own 2022-era hardware in two years of rapid wartime iteration, but a government fee of 20-30% on export permits and over 200 stalled co-production bids have left the country's foreign arms sales far behind battlefield demand. Deals like the two in Denmark route Ukrainian technology into allied markets without waiting for Kyiv's export apparatus to catch up.

Ukrainian first-person-view drones, made on Danish soil

Drone maker TAF Industries plans to produce its first batch in Denmark by the end of 2026, through a joint venture with local firm Upteko. The two signed a memorandum in August 2026, but paperwork on both sides has slowed things down.

"We need to pass a fairly large number of bureaucratic procedures to make it possible," chief business development officer Mykhailo Diachenko told NordicDefenceWatch.

He called the year-end target reachable, "though maybe it will look more like a miracle."

TAF wants footholds in other countries that support Ukraine. It has started the process in Norway and is negotiating with Sweden's Recas. Diachenko said the goal is local production plus sharing Ukrainian combat experience and technology with European partners. TAF builds FPV drones, with capacity near 1 million units a year.

A Ukrainian fund bets on Odesa's sea defense

Ukrainian fund Resist.UA signed a letter of intent to invest an undisclosed sum in Danish maritime-defense startup BlueShadow's €2 million ($2.29 million) pre-seed round, the company announced. BlueShadow's software collects data from maritime sensors, commercial feeds, and open sources, merges them into a single operational picture, and uses AI to detect threats, Defender Media reported.

The company has also built an open software platform it says can help intercept Shahed-type drones. BlueSentry, designed to protect ports, offshore wind farms, undersea cables, and maritime borders from hybrid attack, is one product that the company plans to launch in the Baltic and North seas in October. BlueDragon, now in prototype testing with Defense Ministry certification targeted for late 2026 and deployment planned for spring 2027, is designed to defend Odesa with autonomous swarms of armed sea drones meant to shoot down Russian attack drones.

Founder Charles Maher is a former US Navy submarine commander who ran a nuclear-powered boat, Defender Media reported. Almost his entire engineering team works in Ukraine, drawing on more than 15 Ukrainian suppliers. Resist.UA this summer launched Resist 2.0, an Estonia-based fund aiming to raise €50 million for Ukrainian defense-tech companies.

A Ukrainian fund is investing in a Danish defense startup, a reversal for a country far better known for taking in foreign capital than for sending it abroad. Resist.UA is backing BlueShadow, a maritime security firm run by a former US Navy submarine commander but largely engineered in Ukraine, to build defenses for coasts and undersea cables against drones and hybrid attacks.

BlueShadow is registered in Denmark, but almost its entire engineering team works in Ukraine, and it folds gear from more than 15 Ukrainian suppliers of drones, sensors, and communications into a single system.

Resist.UA, which signed a letter of intent to join the company's €2 million pre-seed round, runs a new €50 million fund, Resist 2.0, designed to bring Ukraine's battlefield-proven technology to global markets.

Ukraine engineers the Danish startup

The company was founded in 2025 and is led by Charles Maher, a former commander of a US Navy nuclear submarine, according to Defender Media.

This summer, it registered as a Ukrainian legal entity and builds on Ukrainian components, planning to fit its maritime platforms with M-Fly's RB-220 gimbal, a day-and-night targeting sensor used until now only on flying drones.

The two sides first met in January 2026 and formalized the partnership as BlueShadow raised its round and Resist.UA launched its second fund.

The systems guard the sea

BlueShadow is building two of them. BlueDragon, still in development, is designed to shield Ukraine's coastal cities, ports, and shipping lanes from drone strikes. BlueSentry, which the company plans to launch in October, is aimed at protecting ports, offshore wind farms, undersea cables, and maritime borders from hybrid attack, the kind of sabotage that has repeatedly damaged Baltic Sea infrastructure.

"This partnership will fuel the next phase of our mission to protect people, infrastructure, commerce, and natural resources at sea," the company said.

Ukraine's defense tech turns outward

Ukrainian defense technology, tested in real combat, has drawn growing investor interest, and Ukrainian figures are now building funds to channel it: the former Defense Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, is raising what he calls the country's largest defense-tech venture fund.