# REPORT: TAF Industries and PGZ sign in Gdańsk — a European drone factory for Ukraine is born

> Gdańsk. The city of Solidarność, the shipyards, the workers' resistance to the Soviet empire. On June 25, 2026, in this same city charged with history, two companies — TAF Industries, a Ukrainian defense startup, and Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ), Poland's public defense group — signed a memorandum of intent to localize drone and anti-drone systems production in Poland. The ce

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Reportage
- Published: 2026-06-29
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/reportage-taf-industries-et-pgz-signent-a-gdansk-une-usine-europeenne-de-drones-

## Introduction: Gdańsk, crossroads of history and defense

### A signature that echoes through memory

**Gdańsk**. The city of **Solidarność**, the shipyards, the workers' resistance to the Soviet empire. On **June 25, 2026**, in this same city charged with history, two companies — **TAF Industries**, a Ukrainian defense startup, and **Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ)**, Poland's public defense group — signed a memorandum of intent to **localize drone and anti-drone systems production in Poland**. The ceremony was held during the **Ukraine Recovery Conference**, in the presence of senior government officials from both countries, international partners, and leaders of the global defense industry.

This is not merely a business agreement. It is a chapter of history being written: Ukraine and Poland, two nations that history has often set in conflict, are building together the weapons of defense against the threat that menaces them both. The announcement carries a **deep symbolic significance**, in the words of **Oleksandr Yakovenko**, founder of **TAF Industries**, himself.

### The "Build with Ukraine" framework — co-produce, not just buy

The agreement sits within the **"Build with Ukraine"** program — an initiative that embodies a fundamental paradigm shift in aid to Ukraine. The era of simple deliveries from existing stockpiles is over. What is being built now is a **co-production model** where battle-tested Ukrainian technologies pair with the industrial capacities and manufacturing infrastructure of European partners.

**Adam Leszkiewicz**, President of **PGZ**, summarized the logic of this agreement precisely: Ukraine has accumulated unique experience in air defense and counter-air attack — experience that cooperation with **TAF Industries** allows to be integrated into PGZ's production ecosystem to create advanced, field-tested technological solutions. This is not rhetoric: it is the factual description of a Ukrainian competitive advantage unique in the world.

*Gdańsk, city of workers' resistance against the Soviet empire, becomes today the birthplace of a defense industry that will protect Europe from its Russian heir. I do not know if the founders of Solidarność would have imagined this historical reversal. But I think they would have approved.*

## TAF Industries — a Ukrainian defense industry success story

### Born of war, forged in combat

**TAF Industries** is the embodiment of what this war has produced most unexpectedly in Ukraine: a world-class technological defense industry born out of urgency and forged in the fire of combat. The Ukrainian company develops military drones and anti-drone systems whose effectiveness has been tested under the most demanding conditions imaginable — Ukrainian fronts where every technological failure is paid for in human lives.

This combat experience is precisely what makes **TAF Industries** valuable to its Polish partner. **PGZ** has extensive industrial infrastructure, skilled workforce, established supply chains. What it seeks in this partnership is exactly what TAF possesses: **real combat data**, technologies tested under pressure, and intimate knowledge of the operational needs of forces facing Russian drones.

### The terms of the agreement — co-development, co-financing, co-production

The agreement between **TAF Industries** and **PGZ** provides for **joint research and development projects**, **co-financing mechanisms**, **protected technical data exchanges**, and **real-world testing**. The objective is to develop systems meeting **strict NATO operational standards** — a necessary condition for these systems to be deployed by Alliance member armies beyond Ukraine.

The strategic vision of **Oleksandr Yakovenko** is explicit: to create a **resilient European industrial hub** for UAV and anti-drone technologies. Not merely a Polish-Ukrainian factory, but a platform that can serve the entire European defense ecosystem. This ambition, if realized, would make Poland — with Ukrainian expertise — a central player in European anti-drone defense.

*A European hub for anti-drone technologies co-founded by Ukraine: this is the most remarkable transformation this war has produced. Ukraine will never again be only a recipient of Western aid — it has become a provider of combat technology. This reversal deserves to be underscored.*

## The FlyFocus Striker drone — a 1,000 km range tested near Kyiv

### A successful test on the same day as the signing

On **June 25, 2026**, the same day as the **TAF-PGZ** agreement signing, a Polish deep-strike drone **Striker**, developed by **FlyFocus**, was successfully tested on a training range near **Kyiv**. Its declared range of **1,000 kilometers** makes it a significant deep-strike system. Ukrainian operators who participated in the test provided **positive feedback**. The Striker can carry **high-intensity fragmentation or thermobaric explosive payloads** and is equipped with **advanced encrypted communications and satellite guidance**.

This coincidence is not the result of chance. The **Gdańsk conference** and the Striker test are two manifestations of the same phenomenon: **Poland has become a central actor in military support for Ukraine**, not only by transmitting Western weapons but by developing its own capabilities and testing them directly with Ukrainian forces. This is a profound transformation of the Polish-Ukrainian bilateral relationship.

### 1,000 km range — what this means strategically

A strike drone with a range of **1,000 kilometers** can reach very deep targets in Russian territory from Ukrainian positions. By way of comparison, the distance between the eastern Ukrainian front line and **Moscow** is approximately **700-800 kilometers**. Such a system is not designed for tactical combat — it is designed for **deep strategic strike**, targeting factories, depots, command centers, refineries.

If the **Striker** actually enters operational service with Ukrainian forces, it represents a significant addition to the deep-strike arsenal Kyiv has developed since **2023**. Ukraine has already demonstrated its capacity to strike more than **1,200 kilometers** from the front with its domestic drones — the attack on **Orenburg** being the most striking recent example. The Striker would fit within that same logic of pressure on Russia's military-industrial complex.

*One thousand kilometers of range. I note this figure thinking of Orenburg in flames, Volgograd struck, Russian factories struggling to produce. Ukraine strikes farther and farther, more and more precisely. And Poland gives it the means to do so. This is an alliance in action — concrete, measurable, decisive.*

## PGZ — Poland's defense group steps into history

### Industrial infrastructure placed at Ukraine's service

**Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ)** is Poland's main public defense group, bringing together dozens of defense sector companies under one umbrella. Its **extensive industrial infrastructure** — factories, engineers, supply chains, testing capabilities — represents exactly what Ukraine needs to scale up its drone production.

The decision by **PGZ** to commit to this partnership is not purely altruistic. It is strategic: the Polish company understands that Ukrainian battle-tested technologies will carry considerable commercial value in the years ahead, that **NATO** armies will seek to acquire proven anti-drone systems, and that positioning itself today as co-developer of these systems will give it a durable competitive advantage in this rapidly expanding market.

### Poland's political signal

Beyond the industrial dimension, this partnership is a strong political signal from **Poland**: Warsaw is not content with transmitting weapons to Ukraine — it is co-investing in its defense industry, linking its industrial capabilities to Ukrainian military resilience. This is a form of bilateral defense integration that goes well beyond standard **NATO** commitments.

**Poland**, which shares a border with **Russia** (via the Kaliningrad exclave) and with **Belarus**, Moscow's ally, has very concrete reasons to want Ukraine to win this war. Co-producing anti-Russian drones with Ukrainians is a way of aligning national interests with declared political support. This is a consistency not always found in all of Ukraine's partners.

*Poland always surprises me with the constancy of its support for Ukraine — surprises in the positive sense. There is something in this Polish-Ukrainian relationship that transcends calculations, even when the calculations are sound. It is a solidarity of neighbors who understand they face the same enemy.*

## The Gdańsk conference — far more than a conference

### A signal of reconstruction

The **Ukraine Recovery Conference** in **Gdańsk** was not just another summit. It was the signal that Ukraine's reconstruction is a strategic priority for its allies — not a hypothetical question to address after the war ends, but a reality to finance and organize right now. Energy agreements worth more than **one billion euros** were announced during the conference according to statements by Ukraine's energy minister.

The simultaneous presence of senior Polish and Ukrainian government officials, industrial leaders, and international partners at **Gdańsk** during the signing of the **TAF-PGZ** agreement testifies to the symbolic and strategic importance accorded to this deal. It was not a second-tier ceremony — it was a signing in the presence of the people who matter.

### Reconstruction as a victory strategy

An often overlooked aspect of support for Ukraine is that reconstruction and military victory are not sequential — they are parallel processes. Building a Ukrainian defense industry in **Poland** while rebuilding damaged Ukrainian infrastructure, while continuing to fight at the front: this is the survival strategy of a democracy under siege. And it works — even if it is exhausting and costly.

The **TAF-PGZ** agreement contributes to this strategy. It secures a supply chain out of reach of Russian bombs, in an allied **NATO** country. It builds industrial capacity that will endure beyond the war. It sends a message to investors that Ukraine and its partners are thinking about the future. This is multi-dimensional strategy — and that is exactly what a nation at war must pursue.

*Building a drone factory in Poland while bombs fall in Ukraine: some might see a contradiction. I see instead proof that a democracy is capable of fighting several battles simultaneously — that of the present and that of the future. And this is what makes the difference.*

## The value chain: from Ukrainian engineering to Polish assembly

### How industrial roles are distributed

The agreement between **TAF Industries** and **PGZ** is not a simple subcontracting deal — it is a **co-development partnership** that distributes roles according to each partner's comparative advantages. **TAF Industries** brings **combat experience**: its engineers have designed and improved their systems in real conditions, integrating field feedback into development cycles measured in weeks rather than years. This iteration speed is something major Western defense companies cannot match.

**PGZ** brings **industrial** capacity: certified facilities, established logistics chains, access to **NATO** markets, and the credibility of a national armaments group recognized by allied governments. This combination — Ukrainian agility and Polish infrastructure — creates an **industrial synergy** that neither could achieve alone. This is the co-production model of **21st-century** military manufacturing.

### What is at stake for future NATO customers

The drones produced under the **TAF-PGZ** agreement are not destined exclusively for the Ukrainian front. The partnership also aims to develop a **commercial offering** addressed to **NATO** member armies seeking to strengthen their unmanned aerial systems capabilities at reasonable cost. For these armies, the main argument is simple: drones tested in real combat conditions against the best available Russian countermeasures — that is a certification no controlled-conditions test program can match.

Potential markets include small and medium-sized European armies that lack resources to develop their own drone systems but need autonomous **ISR and fire support** capabilities. For **PGZ**, this diversification toward NATO export markets is a strategic objective that fits within the broader rise of the Polish defense industry as a regional supplier.

*Ukrainian drones certified by combat, manufactured in Poland, sold to NATO. That is the TAF-PGZ business model. And it is an extraordinarily strong commercial proposition: no laboratory test is worth four years of real war against Russian countermeasures.*

## Gdańsk as symbol of European industrial renaissance

### A port city weaving history

**Gdańsk** — formerly **Danzig** — is a city whose name is inextricably linked to the turning points of European history. It is where **World War II** began in **1939**, with the bombardment of **Westerplatte**. It is where the **Solidarność** movement was born in the shipyards in **1980**, triggering the gradual fall of communism in **Eastern Europe**. That the Ukrainian-Polish **defense industrial renaissance** should be signed in **Gdańsk** is not merely a geographical coincidence — it is a choice laden with meaning.

The **Ukraine Recovery Conference** held there in June **2026**, concurrent with the signing of the **TAF-PGZ** agreement, confirmed **Gdańsk**'s role as a crossroads between history and the future. The millions of euros committed during the conference for Ukrainian reconstruction accumulate alongside defense industrial contracts to sketch a new economic geography of **Eastern Europe** — a geography where solidarity is also an investment.

### The ripple effect on Poland's defense industry

The **TAF-PGZ** agreement is not isolated in Poland's industrial landscape. It is part of a broader transformation of the Polish defense industry, which in a few years has evolved from a customer of foreign systems to a producer and exporter of its own industrial base. License production purchases, co-developments, technology partnerships — such as the recent agreement for **Shield AI V-BAT** drones — are creating an increasingly dense and competitive defense industrial ecosystem.

This ecosystem benefits the entire **local value chain**: component suppliers, mechanical subcontractors, software engineers, maintenance technicians. The rise of Polish defense creates skilled jobs, strengthens the local industrial fabric, and reduces foreign dependencies for critical equipment. This is exactly the type of economic benefit that allies seek when investing in defense — and **Poland** is demonstrating it in exemplary fashion.

*Gdańsk, 2026. A Ukrainian-Polish defense agreement, a recovery conference, millions committed to the future. This city that saw World War II and Solidarność born now sees something new being born: Europe defending itself, without waiting for permission from Washington. This is historical progress.*

## Ukrainian drones as a global military learning platform

### The war in Ukraine as the laboratory of drone doctrine

The **TAF-PGZ** agreement does not just transfer production capabilities — it transfers **operational know-how** accumulated under real war conditions. The engineers and technicians from **TAF Industries** who will train Polish personnel will bring with them years of experience in designing, testing, and improving combat drones based on field feedback. This is a type of expertise no military academy or simulation program can produce — it is acquired only in the fire of war.

For **Poland**, access to this expertise is as valuable as the drones themselves. Training Polish engineers in Ukrainian rapid development practices — short cycles, real-condition testing, iterations based on operational feedback — is introducing into the Polish defense industry a culture of innovation that makes the difference between systems that work in a laboratory and systems that work in combat.

### The implications for NATO doctrine

The drone employment doctrines that **Ukraine** has developed since **2022** are beginning to be studied and integrated into **NATO**'s doctrinal thinking. The **TAF-PGZ** agreement accelerates this doctrinal transfer: by producing Ukrainian systems on Polish soil, it creates an opportunity for **Alliance** planners to have direct access to the equipment, employment data, and operational feedback from Ukrainian forces.

This doctrinal integration goes beyond the technical aspects. It touches on the fundamental questions of **modern high-intensity warfare**: how to integrate drone swarms into ground maneuver, how to protect forces from adversary countermeasures, how to maintain pressure on an adversary with significant electronic warfare capabilities. Ukrainian experience is the richest available learning source for **NATO** — and the **TAF-PGZ** partnership is one of its transmission channels.

*TAF Industries and PGZ in Gdańsk. A page being written in the continuity of what this city represents: resistance, solidarity, reconstruction. The agreement signed in June 2026 may be studied in industrial history textbooks as the moment when Ukraine and Poland together decided to build the future of European defense.*

## Conclusion: an industrial alliance that reinforces the political alliance

### From diplomacy to production

The agreement signed in **Gdańsk** on **June 25, 2026** between **TAF Industries** and **PGZ** marks a moment of transition in European support for Ukraine. The shift is from arms deliveries to co-production, from emergency aid to structural cooperation. This transition is fundamental: it means that support for Ukraine is no longer contingent on the availability of existing stockpiles, but anchored in industrial capacity under construction.

For **Ukraine**, this partnership reinforces its position as a technologically innovative country capable of bringing value to its partners — not just receiving their aid. For **Poland**, it consolidates its role as a central player in Eastern European defense. For **NATO** and the **EU**, it demonstrates that defense industrial cooperation can deploy at a pace compatible with current security urgencies.

### The future European drone hub

If **Oleksandr Yakovenko**'s vision is realized — a **resilient European industrial hub for UAV and anti-drone technologies** — Poland and Ukraine will position themselves as co-founding actors of an industry that will structure continental defense for decades. In **Gdańsk**, in the city where Europe won its freedom against Soviet communism, the seeds of that industry have just been planted.

This report is not the account of an ordinary contract signing. It is the account of a moment when two nations decide that their shared future runs through common defense — and through the drones that will protect their skies.

*Ukrainian drone employment doctrines entering NATO training programs. This is one of the most lasting effects of this partnership — not the drones themselves, which will be replaced by better generations, but the way of thinking about their employment in high-intensity conditions. That knowledge will outlast the war.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [United24 Media — Ukraine's TAF Industries and Poland's PGZ Sign Deal to Scale Joint Drone Manufacturing — June 25, 2026](https://united24media.com/world/ukraines-taf-industries-and-polands-pgz-sign-deal-to-scale-joint-drone-manufacturing-20176)

- [Militarnyi — TAF Industries and PGZ to Establish Joint Drone Factory in Poland — June 26, 2026](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/taf-industries-and-pgz-to-establish-joint-drone-factory-in-poland/)

### Secondary sources

- [United24 Media — German-Ukrainian Joint Venture ARX Industries to Build Thousands of Frontline Robots — June 26, 2026](https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/german-ukrainian-joint-venture-arx-industries-to-build-thousands-of-frontline-robots-20192)

- [United24 Media — Ukraine Showcases Complete Counter-Drone Network After Neutralizing 7,000 Enemy UAVs — June 24, 2026](https://united24media.com/defense-tech/ukraine-showcases-complete-counter-drone-network-after-neutralizing-7000-enemy-uavs-20131)

- [Militarnyi — Ukraine, Norway to Launch Joint Combat Drone Production Line in 2026 — June 28, 2026](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/ukraine-norway-to-launch-joint-combat-drone-production-line-in-2026/)

- [Ukrpravda — Energy deals worth over €1bn to be signed in Gdańsk, Ukraine's energy minister says — June 25, 2026](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/25/8041092/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/reportage-taf-industries-et-pgz-signent-a-gdansk-une-usine-europeenne-de-drones-