Dominion Dynamics founder Eliot Pence, pictured in Ottawa last year, says his company intends 'to move fast' after striking a deal with Ukraine's Tencore.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
Dominion Dynamics is aiming to manufacture uncrewed ground vehicles for use in the war in Ukraine, becoming the latest Canadian defence company to help Kyiv move production away from the front lines and bolstering an agreement recently signed by the two countries’ leaders.
On Tuesday, the defence-tech maker announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Tencore, a ground robotics company based in Ukraine, to manufacture its uncrewed ground vehicles in Ottawa and outfit them with Dominion’s own command-and-control software.
The partnership is a direct response to an agreement signed last month by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to jointly produce uncrewed systems, counterdrone technologies and munitions. Mr. Carney has also committed to sending one-third of all drones manufactured in Canada to Ukraine.
“Canada has the work force and the suppliers to build at scale,” Eliot Pence, chief executive officer of the Ottawa-based company, said in a statement. “This agreement is how two companies start turning that commitment into vehicles, and we intend to move fast.”
Already, the two companies have moved quickly. Their relationship began about a month ago at an international defence industry exhibition in Poland, where Canada was highlighted. There, Mr. Pence said, members of his team met employees of Tencore and struck up discussions about how they could collaborate.
“The rest is history. It happened in 30 days, which reflects the urgency of the moment.”
Dominion is the latest Canadian company to embark upon a defence agreement with Ukrainian industry. In May, Sentinel R&D Inc., a drone company based in Hamilton, announced a joint venture with Ukrainian drone company Airlogix to manufacture systems in Canada. Then, in September, Mr. Carney announced a partnership between General Dynamics Mission Systems-Canada, an Ottawa-based subsidiary of the U.S. defence giant, and Ukrainian company GreenTech Harvest to produce uncrewed systems in Canada for use in the war.
These partnerships come on the heels of Mr. Zelensky launching his “Build with Ukraine” initiative in June, 2025, to help diversify the country’s supply chain and give it access to more products made away from the front lines, where manufacturing faces a constant threat of attack. The move contrasts with the President’s approach during the first few years of Russia’s illegal invasion, when the country closely protected its IP and restricted the export of military technologies.
The deal between Dominion and Tencore is still in its early stages. Mr. Pence said he’s currently pursuing government funding in Canada and working with Tencore to ensure it’s authorized to export the Ukrainian technology. He’s also exploring whether Dominion could bring Canadian auto parts makers into its supply chain for the autonomous vehicles.
The platform Dominion plans to manufacture is a modular vehicle called TerMIT. Tencore has designed the drone to be adaptable to different use cases, including transporting supplies and people, deploying barbed wire and operating a machine gun.
A version of the Ukrainian platform is arriving at Dominion’s facility in Ottawa this week, Mr. Pence said, where his team’s job will be to take it apart and put it back together again.
“It will give us a better sense of ‘What are we thinking about? What do we need to prepare for? What should the production line look like? Do we have the testing facility necessary to test different types of contexts?’” he said.
If the partnership goes ahead as planned, Mr. Pence said Dominion will begin with five prototype builds. By 2027, it will kick off initial production. Tencore has delivered more than 5,000 of the uncrewed ground vehicles to Ukrainian military units since 2024, according to the company. Dominion’s goal is to produce between 500 and 1,000 units in its 30,000-square-foot facility over the next two years.
“Battlefield requirements change in weeks, so production, operational feedback and engineering have to run as a loop: build, deploy, learn, change, scale,” said Roman Tkachenko, co-founder of Tencore, in a statement.
“Canada gives us the manufacturing base, suppliers and reliable power to run that loop alongside allies who need these vehicles.”
The integration of Dominion’s AuraNet platform with the Ukrainian vehicles will also be a big step forward for the company, which has not yet tested the technology in Ukraine, Mr. Pence said. AuraNet is an array of sensor nodes that can be deployed together to collect and communicate data, such as video, images or voice notes, and detect threats.
Mr. Pence said his long-term goal is to “ruggedize” the Ukrainian vehicles for Arctic terrain and conditions, in order to sell to the Canadian Armed Forces. But for now, the focus remains on building for Ukraine.