Finland and Ukraine Sign Agreement on Enhanced Defence and Security Cooperation — Joint Drone Manufacturing, Tech Transfer and Simplified Export
New York, 23 September 2026
Key points
- Alexander Stubb and Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the Agreement on Enhanced Defence and Security Cooperation on 23 September; the Finnish defence ministry places it "under the Drone Deal format" and says it "will enable defence materiel cooperation between the two countries"
- Scope, in the ministry's words: technology and knowledge transfer, research, development and innovation cooperation, joint manufacturing and drone technology development between the two industries, and simpler administrative processes "for example regarding the granting of export authorisations"
- The agreement began with a suggestion from Zelenskyy to Petteri Orpo in Armenia in early May and was negotiated over the summer under the defence ministry's lead. Antti Häkkänen: "For months, the Finnish Ministry of Defence has been negotiating this agreement intensively with Ukraine"
- No funding, quantity or company is named. In August, Finnish companies signed cooperation agreements in Kyiv, among them a letter of intent between Innokas and Airlogix to set up drone production in Finland
Finland has signed the framework its industry had begun filling in August: an intergovernmental text that moves Ukrainian drone know-how north and Finnish capacity into Ukraine's supply, with the export-licence step shortened in both directions.
Orpo: "Ukraine has developed its defence capability and industry in ways we can learn a lot from in Finland. This new agreement both supports Ukraine's defence and is a concrete step towards preparing Finland's defence industry and defence forces for a new, more technologically sophisticated era of warfare." Stubb, on X, put the exchange the other way round as well: by learning from Ukraine's experience, Finland strengthens its own capabilities. The release describes administrative cooperation between the two governments and their industries as an objective in itself, which is the clause that does work: Finnish defence exports run through a ministry licence, and the agreement commits both sides to make transfers of materiel and technology between them "as efficient as possible".
The format has precedents on the site's own record. Norway's pact with Kyiv moved to production of Ukrainian mid-range strike drones on Norwegian soil; Romania's agreement in the spring backed joint manufacturing with EUR 200 million from SAFE; Berlin's June defence week produced four German-Ukrainian joint ventures, Airlogix among the partners. Finland's text names no company and no money; the EUR 290 million aid package of September is a separate instrument.
The Norwegian sequence is the template to read this against: the intergovernmental text first, the company contract months later, a production line only after that, and the Finnish agreement has reached the first step with the second already sketched by Innokas and Airlogix. What the release does not say is which direction the volume runs, whether Finnish lines build for Ukraine's front or Ukrainian designs are licensed for Finland's own forces; the wording covers both and commits to neither. The observable is a named company with a licence, not a signing in New York. Signal No. 152 carried the agreement beside the week's other bilateral texts.
Related · Joint production with Ukraine
- Norway to Build Ukrainian Mid-Strike Drones as Oslo–Kyiv Pact Moves to Production
- Romania–Ukraine Joint Drone Manufacturing on Romanian Soil Backed by €200M SAFE; Dan–Zelensky Bilateral Documents Signed
- 'Build with Ukraine' Launches German–Ukrainian Joint Ventures; Auterion–Airlogix, Quantum–WIY (STRILA), Quantum–Tencore Named
