UDS and the French European Defence Movement sign a Memorandum on strategic partnership

UDS and the French Mouvement pour la Défense Européenne (MDE) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishing a strategic partnership.

Mouvement pour la Défense Européenne (MDE) brings together public institutions, governments, non-governmental organizations, universities, defence industry stakeholders, and private-sector partners around initiatives aimed at strengthening European sovereignty and strategic autonomy.

As part of its cooperation with UDS, MDE intends to support the company's projects by facilitating access to funding through its direct network of potential donors, as well as through its own fundraising initiatives.

The Memorandum was signed by Volodymyr Beshlei, Deputy CEO of UDS, and Julien Profumo, President of MDE.

The agreement provides for the exchange of expertise, joint training and awareness-raising programmes, and coordination of a number of strategic projects, including:

1. Demining forests in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone;
2. Demining Ukraine's inland water bodies and coastal areas;
3. Construction of forest firebreaks and access roads;
4. Conducting a Non-Technical Survey (NTS) of the Buzko-Dnipro-Lyman Canal to support the reopening of the Port of Mykolaiv;
5. Comprehensive humanitarian demining of the Snihurivka Territorial Community, as well as communities in Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv oblasts;
6. Deployment and scaling up the production of the Ukrainian Germina URCM-3000 mechanical demining machine.

Commenting on the partnership, Julien Profumo, President of MDE, emphasized that Ukraine has accumulated unique operational expertise in countering industrial-scale mine warfare—experience that few European armed forces have acquired since the Second World War. He noted that cooperation with UDS will help bring this expertise into broader European efforts to strengthen the continent's sovereignty and strategic autonomy.