Blackwater founder Erik Prince has joined the drone-warfare fray in Ukraine, SEC filings reveal

Source: The Guardian

Sun 22 Feb 2026 07.00 EST
Last modified on Sun 22 Feb 2026 07.01 EST


After multiple sources previously told the Guardian that Erik Prince – Maga ally and founder of the now defunct mercenary company Blackwater – was looking to work with Ukraine’s invaluable drone sector, recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents confirm he now is.

Swarmer, which bills itself as a battle-tested Ukrainian startup specializing in autonomous drone software, filed for an initial public offering and has recruited Prince to help sell the company as non-executive chair.

“Swarmer is a software-first defense technology company focused on collaborative autonomy and intelligent swarming, originating from the cauldron of modern combat in Ukraine,” said Prince in a letter to prospective stockholders in the filing, released earlier this month.

“Since April 2024, Swarmer’s platform has been deployed in Ukraine with more than 100,000 real-world missions in active combat environments, informing the software and machine-learning models that feed into it.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/22/erik-prince-drone-company-ukraine