Milrem Robotics

Milrem Robotics is an Estonian defence company and Europe's leading unmanned ground vehicle manufacturer. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Tallinn, it designed and produces the THeMIS (Tracked Hybrid Modular Infantry System), a tracked modular UGV used for logistics, casualty evacuation, ISR and direct-fire support. Milrem led the iMUGS programme, the EU-funded initiative to develop a common European UGV architecture. Its customer base spans NATO members in northern and central Europe, with Ukraine as the most operationally intensive end-user.

The company operates as part of the Helsing group following acquisition in 2023, which accelerated its AI integration roadmap without moving its manufacturing base. THeMIS platforms have been deployed in Ukraine since 2022, making Milrem one of the few European UGV makers with verified combat feedback at scale.

On approximately 4 June 2026 Milrem and Dutch partner VDL Defentec opened a THeMIS production line at Born, Netherlands, handing over the first of more than 100 units funded by the Dutch government for Ukraine. It is the first THeMIS assembly outside Milrem's Estonian factory, operated through Milrem's Dutch subsidiary and configured as a flexible final-assembly line for rapid capacity scaling. The Born line follows a fivefold expansion of Germany's ARX Robotics GEREON fleet for Ukraine in May 2026 and extends that demand signal geographically: a single national factory cannot sustain wartime surge output, so a second line in a second allied country is the structural answer.

The Born opening sets the cross-border surge-capacity precedent NATO ground-robot resupply planning has not previously had. For the broader autonomous-systems sector it demonstrates that a modular UGV programme can disperse manufacturing without losing configuration control, a key requirement for any future NATO surge scenario. Ukrainian rival Trinity Robotics has since pursued the same template from the opposite direction: on 9 July 2026 it doubled its 2026 production plan for the Konyk One UGV and opened talks with a French manufacturer on a joint venture under the Build with Ukraine programme. Where Milrem exported its production line to an allied host, Trinity is seeking the reverse, embedding Ukrainian design inside an allied factory, underlining that cross-border UGV manufacturing has become the sector's standard scaling mechanism rather than a one-off.