Ottawa's Calian Group has signed a partnership with Ukrainian technology and defence company SkyFall that will focus on drone-enabled defence training, the company announced this week.
What the partnership covers
Under the deal, SkyFall and Calian will develop unmanned systems training and education programs for armed forces in Canada, the United Kingdom, other NATO members and allied countries. SkyFall Academy, the Ukrainian side of the partnership, is a training centre certified by Ukraine's Ministry of Defence that specializes in unmanned systems training. It has trained more than 30,000 Ukrainian military personnel over the past three years, giving it a depth of frontline drone experience that few Western training providers can match.
Why Calian, why now
Calian brings its own track record to the table: more than four decades of experience designing and delivering training programs for the Canadian Armed Forces, the British Army, NATO and allied forces. Calian CEO Patrick Houston said learning directly from SkyFall's experience in Ukraine will strengthen the expertise of the company's instructors and help ensure military personnel are prepared for the realities of modern operations.
The financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
The announcement follows Prime Minister Mark Carney's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Calgary on September 10, and comes just a week after Ukraine and Canada signed a declaration for a 100-Year Partnership and a Joint Declaration on Enhancement of the Defence and Security Cooperation between the two countries. The SkyFall deal fits squarely into that broader push to deepen defence ties between Ottawa and Kyiv, with drone warfare, an area where Ukraine has become a world leader out of necessity, at the centre of it.
An Ottawa company on a defence roll
For Calian, headquartered in Ottawa, the SkyFall partnership is the latest in a string of moves sharpening its focus on defence and space work. The company recently secured a 15-year British Army training services contract beginning in October 2026, adding to a defence training portfolio that already spans multiple NATO countries.
What led here
The SkyFall deal comes weeks after Calian sold its U.S. commercial IT business to California-based Trace3, a move the company's leadership framed as freeing up resources to concentrate on defence and space. As ottown's earlier report noted, CEO Patrick Houston said offloading the U.S. IT arm let Calian sharpen its focus on those core areas, a strategy the SkyFall partnership now builds directly on. That sale itself followed an earlier agreement, detailed in ottown's earlier report, to hand the U.S. commercial IT business to Trace3 as part of Calian's broader streamlining.
With training programs already running for the Canadian Armed Forces and the British Army, and a Ukrainian training partner with real combat-informed expertise now on board, Calian's Ottawa headquarters is emerging as a hub for NATO-aligned drone training work at a moment when unmanned systems are reshaping how militaries prepare their personnel.
Sources: Ottawa Business Journal, The Canadian Press (via CP24)
