# TESTIMONY: SkyFall signs with Poland to unlock European funding for its combat drones

> I want to be clear about what the SkyFall-BGK MoU is and is not. It is not a check. It is not a guarantee that production will scale immediately. It is a framework agreement that creates the legal and

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Profile
- Published: 2026-07-02
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/temoignage-skyfall-signe-avec-la-pologne-pour-ouvrir-les-financements-europeens

## Introduction: **Gdańsk**, June 26 — a signature that matters

### What happened at the **URC** 2026

On **June 26, 2026**, in **Gdańsk**, at the **Ukraine Recovery Conference** (**URC** 2026), Ukrainian drone manufacturer **SkyFall** signed a **Memorandum of Understanding** with Poland's state development bank, **BGK** (**Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego**). The ceremony was attended by **EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos** and Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister for Defense Technologies **Serhii Boiev**. The MoU is not a procurement contract. It is something more strategically significant: a framework that allows **SkyFall** to access **EU guarantee mechanisms** — specifically the **Ukraine Facility** **Pillar II** — to finance the expansion of its drone production capacity.

**SkyFall** makes two platforms that Ukrainian forces have deployed extensively: the **Vampire** reconnaissance and strike drone and the **P1-SUN** **FPV** system. These are not experimental prototypes. They are production systems with documented operational records. What **SkyFall** needs — what the **BGK** agreement unlocks — is the capital to scale production to the levels that the Ukrainian military's operational demand requires. The European funding architecture is the vehicle. Poland is the conduit. The **BGK** agreement is the key.

### Why **Gdańsk**, why now

The **Ukraine Recovery Conference** has become one of the most important annual diplomatic events in the Ukraine-support ecosystem — a gathering where governments, international financial institutions, and private investors coordinate the financial architecture of Ukraine's wartime and postwar needs. The June 2026 conference in **Gdańsk** was the fourth iteration since the full-scale invasion began, and it had a distinctive character: a growing emphasis on **defense-industrial investment** alongside the reconstruction financing that has dominated previous conferences.

The **SkyFall**-**BGK** signing on the conference sidelines was exactly the kind of concrete commercial outcome that organizers have been pushing for: not just pledges and frameworks but actual transactions, actual agreements, actual capital flow that connects EU mechanisms to Ukrainian production. Commissioner Marta **Kos**'s presence at the signing was itself a signal — the EU is not merely a funding source to be drawn on; it is an active participant in shaping the architecture through which Ukrainian defense industry accesses European capital.

## **SkyFall**'s platforms: **Vampire** and **P1-SUN**

### The **Vampire**: reconnaissance to strike

**SkyFall**'s **Vampire drone** is a fixed-wing unmanned system designed for extended-duration reconnaissance and, in its strike configuration, for precision attack against high-value targets. It operates in a range bracket that allows it to reach targets beyond the reach of most **FPV** drones, providing Ukrainian commanders with a platform that can loiter, surveil, and strike with a level of persistence that shorter-range systems cannot offer. The **Vampire** has been used operationally in the **Zaporizhzhia**, **Donetsk**, and **Kherson** directions, with documented strikes on Russian logistics nodes, artillery positions, and command vehicles.

The platform's significance extends beyond its individual tactical performance. The **Vampire** represents the kind of **medium-range, multi-role drone capability** that Ukraine's military leadership has consistently identified as a critical gap — the capability tier between cheap expendable **FPV** drones and the expensive, slow-to-produce long-range systems like the Neptune cruise missile. Scaling **Vampire** production would give Ukrainian commanders more options at the operational level, reducing the dependence on any single platform type and complicating Russian countermeasure development.

### The **P1-SUN**: **FPV** at the tactical edge

**SkyFall**'s **P1-SUN** is an **FPV** (First Person View) kamikaze drone — the class of system that has transformed tactical warfare in the Ukraine conflict. **FPV** drones are small, fast, cheap to produce, difficult to intercept, and increasingly capable. They have been used to destroy main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, ammunition storage sites, command vehicles, and dismounted infantry. The sheer volume of **FPV** production in Ukraine — by dozens of manufacturers, including **SkyFall** — has made the **FPV** drone the defining weapon of the current phase of the conflict in terms of tactical impact per dollar spent.

The **P1-SUN** competes in a crowded production environment. What **SkyFall** brings to this competition is a combination of **manufacturing consistency, logistics integration, and operator feedback loops** that have allowed it to iterate its platform faster than many competitors. The **BGK** financing, if it flows as the MoU intends, would allow **SkyFall** to increase **P1-SUN** production at a pace that moves beyond artisanal workshop output toward something approaching industrial scale — a transition that Ukrainian officials have identified as essential for sustaining the operational tempo the armed forces require.

## **Ukraine Facility** **Pillar II**: the **9.6 billion** euro architecture

### What the **Ukraine Facility** actually is

The **EU Ukraine Facility** — formally the Regulation establishing the **Ukraine Facility** — provides up to **50 billion euros** over 2024-2027 for Ukraine's recovery, reconstruction, and reform. It is divided into three pillars. **Pillar I** provides budget support through loans and grants linked to Ukraine's reform agenda. **Pillar III** supports civil society and partner organizations. **Pillar II** — the one relevant to **SkyFall**'s **BGK** agreement — provides **9.6 billion euros in investment-support instruments**: 7.8 billion in loan guarantees and 1.8 billion in blended finance (grant-loan mixtures designed to reduce the risk of commercial investments in Ukraine).

The leverage target for **Pillar II** is **40 billion euros** — meaning the EU expects its **9.6 billion** in guarantees and grants to catalyze four times as much investment from commercial and bilateral sources. That leverage ratio is how EU development financing is supposed to work: public money de-risks investments that would not be made on purely commercial terms, attracting private capital that would not otherwise flow to a war-affected country. The **SkyFall**-**BGK** MoU is exactly this mechanism in action: EU guarantees reduce the risk of Polish state bank financing to a Ukrainian manufacturer, making a transaction possible that would not occur without the guarantee architecture.

### 89% committed by June 30

By **June 30, 2026**, approximately **89% of Ukraine Facility** **Pillar II** funds had already been committed — allocated to specific projects, counterparties, or investment vehicles. This is a faster commitment pace than EU instruments typically achieve and reflects the urgency of Ukraine's situation. The high commitment rate also means that the remaining uncommitted funds are competitive: there are more good projects seeking **Pillar II** support than there is remaining capital to fund them. **SkyFall**'s **BGK** agreement, signed on June 26, needs to have been processed quickly to access the remaining availability before full commitment.

The pace of commitment also raises the question of what comes next. **89% committed by mid-2026** means the **Ukraine Facility**'s investment-support capacity will be substantially exhausted before the formal 2027 end date of the current instrument. A new EU support architecture — either an extension of the **Ukraine Facility** or a successor instrument — will be required to sustain the capital flow that Ukraine's reconstruction and **defense industrial** development needs. That negotiation, which has already begun informally in **Brussels**, is one of the more consequential financial policy discussions of 2026.

## **BGK** and the Polish financial bridge

### Poland's role in Ukraine's **defense industrial** finance

**Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK**) is Poland's state development bank — an institution with a mandate to finance projects that serve Poland's national development priorities, including industrial investment, infrastructure, and, increasingly, defense-related financing that aligns with Poland's security interests. As Ukraine's neighbor and one of its most consistently committed supporters, Poland has an obvious interest in Ukrainian defense production capacity: a stronger Ukrainian defense industry reduces pressure on Poland's own border and contributes to regional security in ways that directly benefit **Warsaw**.

Poland has become one of the most significant financial intermediaries for EU-backed investment in Ukraine — partly because of its geographic proximity, partly because of its deep institutional knowledge of Ukraine's business and legal environment, and partly because its government has made this role a strategic priority. **BGK's agreement with SkyFall** reflects all three of these factors: Poland is geographically positioned to serve as a logistics and financial hub for Ukrainian defense industry, it has the institutional relationships and due diligence capacity to assess Ukrainian drone manufacturers, and its government sees the investment as aligned with national security interests.

### The intermediary model and its scalability

The **BGK** model — a Western state development bank acting as an intermediary between EU guarantee mechanisms and Ukrainian production companies — is potentially scalable across multiple European countries and multiple Ukrainian manufacturers. **Germany's KfW, France's Bpifrance, Estonia's KredEx**, and several other national development banks have the institutional capacity to play similar roles. The limiting factor is not institutional capability — it is political will and risk appetite. Poland has both, in sufficient measure, to move first. Whether others follow at the pace Ukraine's situation requires is the key variable.

The **SkyFall**-**BGK** MoU therefore has significance beyond the specific transaction it enables. It is a **demonstration project** — proof that the mechanism works, that a European state development bank can structure a transaction with a Ukrainian drone manufacturer using EU guarantee instruments, and that the result is a bankable agreement that can serve as a template for similar arrangements. The EU Facility's architects hoped for exactly this kind of template creation. The **Gdańsk** signing is evidence that the hope was not unfounded.

## Commissioner **Kos**, **Boiev**, and what their presence signals

### Marta **Kos** and the enlargement portfolio

**Marta Kos** serves as EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy — the portfolio that covers Ukraine's EU accession process as well as relations with the Western Balkans, Moldova, and Georgia. Her presence at a drone manufacturer's MoU signing reflects an understanding that Ukrainian EU accession is not just a legal and governance process — it is also an economic and industrial integration process. A Ukraine that is developing a sophisticated **defense industrial** base compatible with EU standards, financed through EU mechanisms, and integrated into European supply chains is a Ukraine that is advancing its accession agenda in practical as well as formal terms.

**Kos**'s attendance also carries a political message for the Ukrainian government: the EU is not separating its accession and reconstruction support from its **defense industrial** support. The three tracks — accession, reconstruction, and defense industry development — are understood in **Brussels** as connected, not competing. The same institutional frameworks that advance Ukraine's accession reform agenda are the ones that finance **SkyFall**'s production expansion. That integration is deliberate and reflects a European strategic logic that has not always been fully articulated publicly.

### Serhii **Boiev** and Ukraine's industrial doctrine

**Serhii Boiev**, Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister for Defense Technologies, has been one of the primary architects of Ukraine's wartime **defense industrial** strategy — the effort to build a domestic production base that can sustain military operations independently of foreign deliveries. His presence at the **SkyFall**-**BGK** signing is consistent with the broader government doctrine: that every transaction that channels European capital into Ukrainian production is a step toward the **strategic autonomy** that Ukraine's long-term security requires.

**Boiev**'s portfolio includes oversight of Ukraine's **drone, missile, and electronic warfare industries** — the sectors that have been most consequential in the current conflict and that the government has prioritized for investment and expansion. His public endorsement of the **SkyFall**-**BGK** framework sends a signal to other Ukrainian defense manufacturers: this is the model the government supports, these are the mechanisms it is actively facilitating, and companies that position themselves to access EU financing through European state bank intermediaries will have institutional backing from the highest levels of government.

## What 40 billion euros in leverage actually requires

### The private capital question

The **Ukraine Facility** **Pillar II**'s leverage target of **40 billion euros** — seven times larger than the Facility's guarantee allocation — reflects standard EU development finance theory: public guarantees and grants de-risk projects sufficiently to attract private investment at a multiple of the public commitment. In peacetime, in a stable institutional environment, this leverage ratio is achievable. In Ukraine, under wartime conditions, it requires private investors to accept risk levels that most commercial capital structures normally avoid.

The **BGK** model partially addresses this challenge by using a **national development bank** — an institution with a public mandate and a different risk appetite than commercial banks — as the primary capital provider, with EU guarantees reducing the downside exposure. But for the full 40 billion leverage target to be reached, commercial capital will need to flow as well. That requires progress on several fronts simultaneously: Ukraine's wartime legal framework for foreign investment, insurance mechanisms for war-risk losses, and a demonstrated track record of project completion and return that private investors can point to when justifying the risk to their own stakeholders.

### The insurance gap and what fills it

One of the largest barriers to private investment in Ukraine is the **absence of adequate war-risk insurance**. Commercial insurance markets do not offer standard coverage for assets located in an active conflict zone at premiums that make investment economically viable. The EU has been working on mechanisms to fill this gap — including through the **European Investment Bank's** risk-sharing instruments and bilateral guarantee schemes offered by some member states. These mechanisms are not yet at the scale required to fully unlock private capital for Ukrainian **defense industrial** investment, but they are developing in the right direction.

For **SkyFall** specifically, the **BGK** guarantee structure provides a degree of **downside protection** that makes the financing workable even under wartime conditions. The Polish state bank absorbs a portion of the risk; the EU guarantee absorbs another portion; **SkyFall**'s own operations and cash flow service the debt. It is not a riskless transaction — nothing in Ukraine is — but it is a structured approach to risk allocation that makes the transaction feasible. Other transactions using similar structures will face the same challenges. The **SkyFall**-**BGK** agreement's success in navigating them is part of its value as a demonstration project.

## The **URC** 2026 context: rebuilding while the war continues

### What the **Gdańsk** conference was about

The **Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk** was titled, in its official framing, around reconstruction — the post-war rebuilding of Ukraine's infrastructure, economy, and institutions. But the reality of the June 2026 conference was more complicated: Ukraine is not yet in a post-war phase, and the distinction between wartime support and reconstruction financing has become increasingly blurred. Infrastructure bombed on Monday cannot wait until after the war to be rebuilt. Defense industrial capacity needed now cannot be financed through frameworks that assume peace conditions.

The conference's evolving character — from a post-war planning exercise to a wartime financing coordination event — reflects the war's duration and trajectory. After four years of full-scale conflict, European governments and institutions have had to adapt their frameworks to the reality that reconstruction will not wait for a peace agreement, that **defense industrial** investment is part of recovery, and that the boundaries between military and civilian financing are not as clean in practice as they appear in institutional categories. The **SkyFall**-**BGK** agreement is a perfect illustration of this blurring: it uses a reconstruction financing instrument to capitalize a military production company.

### The political signal from **Gdańsk**

The conference's political signal was one of **continued Western commitment** at a moment when Ukraine fatigue was visible in some European political systems. The presence of senior EU officials, finance ministers from multiple member states, and high-profile Ukrainian government representatives was itself a demonstration that the institutional commitment to Ukraine had not softened. Whether that commitment translates into the specific financing commitments Ukraine needs — and at the pace the war requires — is a different question, one that the months following the conference will answer more honestly than any communiqué could.

For **SkyFall**, the conference was not primarily about political signals. It was about **a specific transaction** with a specific financial institution, enabled by a specific EU mechanism, attended by specific officials whose presence amplified its significance. The drone manufacturer did not come to **Gdańsk** to make a statement about Western solidarity. It came to sign a deal that would allow it to build more drones. That focus on the concrete and operational is itself a kind of statement — about what Ukraine's **defense industrial** base needs and how it is going about getting it.

## The broader context: defense financing in wartime Europe

### What the SkyFall deal means for the wider ecosystem

The **SkyFall-BGK Memorandum of Understanding** is one of dozens of financing transactions in various stages of development across the **Ukrainian defense industrial ecosystem**. The ecosystem includes not just drone manufacturers like **SkyFall** but artillery shell producers, electronic warfare companies, communications equipment manufacturers, and the full range of **defense-related industrial activity** that a country at war needs to sustain. Each of these sectors faces the same financing challenge: wartime operating conditions, limited commercial banking appetite for risk, and the need for capital at a pace that traditional financing mechanisms do not provide.

The **Ukraine Facility Pillar II**, the **European Peace Facility**, the **SAFE program**, and bilateral mechanisms like **Denmark's direct financing** model collectively represent a financing architecture that is still being assembled in real time. No single instrument covers all needs. No single country provides all support. The architecture works, when it works, as a **system of complementary instruments** — each one covering gaps that the others leave. **SkyFall**'s **BGK** agreement accesses **Pillar II**. Another manufacturer might access the **European Investment Bank**'s risk-sharing instrument. A third might benefit from **Danish direct financing**. The system is the ensemble, not any single component.

### The Warsaw-Kyiv corridor

**Poland's** role as financial intermediary for **Ukrainian defense industrial investment** reflects a deeper economic and security logic. **Poland** has emerged as the most significant transit country for **Western military equipment** flowing to **Ukraine** — its rail and road infrastructure, its logistics capacity, and its geographic position have made it the primary gateway. That logistics corridor role is now being complemented by a **financial corridor role**: **Polish state institutions** like **BGK** are becoming intermediaries not just for equipment transit but for capital flow from **European institutions** to **Ukrainian producers**.

The **Warsaw-Kyiv financial corridor** has significance beyond the immediate defense industrial context. It is building **institutional relationships, due diligence capacity**, and **financial infrastructure** between the two countries that will serve both in the postwar period. A **Polish state development bank** that has developed the expertise to assess and finance **Ukrainian defense manufacturers** is a **Polish state development bank** that can, after the war, finance **Ukrainian reconstruction projects**, **industrial development**, and the broader economic integration that **Ukraine's EU accession** will require. The **SkyFall-BGK** agreement is not just a defense transaction. It is a relationship being built for the long term.

## Conclusion: A MoU, a key, and what comes next

### The mechanism unlocked

The **SkyFall**-**BGK** Memorandum of Understanding signed in **Gdańsk** on June 26, 2026 represents one piece of a larger financing architecture that Ukraine's defense industry needs to build. Taken alone, it is an important transaction — a Ukrainian drone manufacturer accessing EU guarantee mechanisms through a European state bank intermediary, in a framework that could be replicated across other manufacturers and other European financial institutions. Taken as part of the broader picture — the **Ukraine Facility**, the **SAFE program**, Denmark's **direct financing**, Poland's emerging role as a **defense industrial** hub — it is a **component of a system** that is progressively connecting Ukrainian production capacity to European capital.

That system is not yet complete. The 89% commitment rate of **Pillar II**, the pace of private capital mobilization, the insurance gap, the need for a successor facility — these are all unresolved challenges. But the direction is clear, and the momentum is real. **SkyFall will build more drones**. The **BGK** guarantee will reduce the risk that makes that financing possible. The EU mechanism will have demonstrated another use case. Commissioner **Kos** will have another example for her next enlargement briefing. And the Ukrainian armed forces will, eventually, receive more platforms from a manufacturer whose production capacity grew partly because of what happened in **Gdańsk** on June 26, 2026.

### The testimony of things done

This is a testimony of things done — of an agreement signed, a mechanism activated, a step taken. It is not a guarantee of the outcome those steps are working toward. Wars are not won by MoUs. Peace is not secured by financing instruments. What MoUs and financing instruments do — when they work, when the capital flows, when the production lines expand — is create the material conditions that make the military and political outcomes more achievable. That is enough to make the **Gdańsk** signing worth noting. It is enough to make **SkyFall's persistence, Poland's commitment, and Europe's institutional architecture** worth recording. One deal at a time, one agreement at a time, the support system for Ukraine's defense is being built. This was one of those times.

**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 — Ukrainian drone maker SkyFall signs agreement to unlock EU funding for defense technologies](https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukrainian-drone-maker-skyfall-signs-agreement-that-could-unlock-eu-funding-for-defense-technologies-20221)

- [Euromaidan Press — Rebuilding Ukraine while it burns: what the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026 actually delivered, June 28, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/28/rebuilding-ukraine-while-it-burns-calling-it-progress-what-ukraine-recovery-conference-2026-actually-delivered/)

- [Kyiv Independent — Ukraine War Latest, July 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-141/)

### Secondary sources

- [United24 Media — Denmark puts $660M behind Ukraine's weapons pipeline](https://united24media.com/world/denmark-puts-660m-behind-ukraines-weapons-pipeline-including-drones-and-artillery-20338)

- [Euromaidan Press — International coverage](https://euromaidanpress.com/category/international/)

- Militarnyi — Ukraine military news coverage

---

Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/temoignage-skyfall-signe-avec-la-pologne-pour-ouvrir-les-financements-europeens