Wartime Makes 'Odd' Bedfellows In Danish-Ukrainian Partnership
Odd Systems and Terma Group team up to build AI-powered drone interceptors, with a target to be battlefront-ready this September
Ukraine’s growing defence ecosystem is taking on one more international partner. Odd Systems, a Ukrainian defence tech startup, and Terma Group, a well-established player in the Danish aerospace industry, are teaming up to produce drone interceptors powered by Odd Systems’ thermal camera technology.
The 17-months-old Ukrainian startup was founded by Ukrainian serial founder, Yaroslav Azhnyuk, who pivoted into defence from consumer pet tech when Russia invaded his homeland. He is also behind The Fourth Law, a maker of drones and a related autonomy module whose raise we covered very recently. Denmark’s Terma, meanwhile, was founded more than 80 years ago. Classified as a prime, it first made its name developing radars and communications equipment for the North Atlantic allies during the Cold War.
Together, the two plan to develop unmanned aerial vehicles ( UAVs) that intercept Russian drones, regardless of size or purpose.
The partnership joins dozens of Ukrainian teams already producing anti-drone drones. Odd Systems itself is one of them. Its Horska-12 is a 12’’ first-person view (FPV) interceptor named after Alla Horska, a Ukrainian dissident artist and civil rights activist from the 1960s who protested against Soviet repressions. (She died in 1970, believed to have been murdered by the KGB.)
Horska-12 drones are designed to be competitive and scalable: they reach speeds of 150 kmph and are priced at around €700, which makes them easier and cheaper to be mass-produced – an important point for end users that are trying to keep pace as Russia is ramping up its Shahed kamikaze drone attacks.
Terma group brings decades long experience in radars to the table.
‘We have a rather different approach to what we have seen from other companies,’ Filip Rensch-Jacobsen, vice president for AI and Accelerator on the research and development team at Terma, said in an interview with Resilience Media. ‘Our focus has been on improving the interceptor’s “sense” of the world, with better sensors, though still cheap, and better, faster software.’
Even with these prerequisites, the task that the partners want to tackle is still a formidable one. They aim to develop a line of products that can respond to UAVs on all levels, from tactical FPVs and copters to fixed-wing or flying-wing kamikazes, and devices used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISRs).
The partnership has been in the making for some time already. Terma was first introduced to Odd Systems’ work by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. The two were, in fact, teaming up prior to the intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and Denmark announced in June, which created a pathway for Ukrainian defence companies to open up manufacturing plants in Denmark.
Terma turned to Odd Systems not just because of its work to-date in drones, but because of the startup’s outlook.
‘They seem to have been born with an international mindset,’ said Rensch-Jacobsen. Terma found Odd Systems easy to work with so ‘tangible results’ were very quick to come into being. This is unsurprising. In our interview earlier this year with Odd Systems founder, Azhnyuk, we recalled how he was the first Ukrainian founder to enter the Y Combinator program, back in 2016, and consequently spent five years working from Silicon Valley. He was clear when we spoke to him that he brings his international outlook, and experience scaling an international consumer tech company to the work he now does to defend his country.
‘We expect to see the first interceptors at the battlefront in September [2025],’ said Rensch-Jacobsen, emphasising the real speed of R&D and technology deployment that characterises the wartime defence tech sector in Ukraine. Such a speed to market would be unthinkable in most Western defence sectors.
The two companies will lean on their respective past products and R&D to build out their joint roadmap, a process that partly explains the tight deadlines they have set.
Ultimately, the battlefront is not limited to Ukraine. Unidentified drones fly over strategic installations and military sites all over Europe and the UK so often that keeping up with the numbers has become a challenge in itself.
It is, therefore, no wonder that Azhnyuk believes that ‘making the sky above Europe safe from any intruding drones’ is an important overall component for ‘the future of European security.’ Whilst the first priority is to defend Ukraine, partnerships like these will grow into a resource to defend the whole of Europe in the future.
