Six defence startups from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland and France have been awarded grants through the EU programme BraveTechEU. This was announced by EU Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius on X on 14 July. The companies will now test and further develop their defence technologies in Ukraine.
– With small steps, Ukraine and the EU are building a forward-looking industrial alliance, writes Andrius Kubilius, EU Commissioner for Defence and Space, on X.
The identities of the six companies have not yet been made public. The announcement came in connection with the third EU-Ukraine Defence Industry Forum, which according to the European Commission was held in Kyiv on 13-14 July.
BraveTechEU was launched in July 2025 by the European Commission and Ukraine, and is operated in partnership with the Ukrainian defence technology platform Brave1. According to the Commission, the programme encompasses up to 50 million euros in EU funding through the European Defence Fund (EDF) and the innovation programme EUDIS, with a matching 50 million euros from the Ukrainian state.
The next step in the programme is a test and evaluation phase led by the European Defence Agency (EDA). The Commission and the EDA signed an agreement in April 2026 worth 35 million euros for the phase, in which the technologies will be tested under conditions that replicate the war in Ukraine.