the war on Ukraine, now in its grueling 14th month, has millions displaced, caused global food shortagesand threatened to escalate into a broader conflict. He has also highlighted how new technologies, especially those drawn from the commercial sector, are changing conventional military doctrine.
Ukraine has resisted and rejected Russia’s much greater military force, thanks in large part to a willingness, born of necessity, to adopt and experiment with new technologies. not all of them originally designed for military use.
I recently spoke with Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, 32, about the country’s interest in leveraging new technologies to boost the war effort. Fedorov spoke over Zoom, through an interpreter, from an undisclosed location in Ukraine, about plans to produce more sophisticated drones and other autonomous systems, and to incubate new military ventures.
“Technology has affected and improved our situation, and right now we are trying to improve our military technology,” says Fedorov. Appointment to Ukraine drone army initiative, which encourages foreign individuals and companies to donate commercial drone hardware, is a success Ukraine hopes to build on.
The innovative use of aerial drones in Ukraine has changed conventional thinking about warfare. In the early stages of the conflict, the Turks Bayraktar TB2 cheap and heavy but deadly effective drones boosted morale by finding and destroying battalions of Russian tanks. As the conflict has progressed, commercial drones not intended for military use, from companies like DJI, and modified drones designed for agricultural and industrial use, have proven crucial in detecting and dropping small munitions on Russian ground forces.
In recent months, Russia has become more adept at interfering commercial drone control systems, and Ukraine has sought to develop its own more robust aircraft. A Ukrainian company called Spaitech is developing a range of drones, and in February tests performed of the stationary winda quadcopter designed to operate in harsh weather conditions.
Fedorov says the Ukrainian government is creating financial incentives to help domestic companies produce more drones, with the goal of creating a thriving domestic drone manufacturing industry. “For new civilian companies, we have established an Innovation Development Fund,” he says. “And in a few weeks we will launch a separate Defense Technology Cluster.”
That group will help military companies with financing and other assistance as Ukraine seeks to turn its war efforts into a nimble, high-tech defense industry. Since the start of the war, Ukraine has seen a tenfold increase in domestic military startups, says Fedorov, a further demonstration that necessity is the mother of invention.
He adds that foreign companies, especially cloud companies and defense companies, are welcome to collaborate. “Ukraine is the best opportunity to implement new technologies in life and see them in the field,” she says. Being an active battlefield is bad for many types of businesses, but for others it can be an advantage.
The conflict has also seen new kinds of military autonomy test for the first time. With Russia launching a large number of missiles from ships in the Black Sea, Ukraine has developed small unmanned boats capable of carrying explosives. Russia has retaliated with its own naval drone strikes. “We are really improving our navy drones,” says Fedorov. “We are creating a fleet of them and they are acting” in the Black Sea.
Ukraine is also looking to develop artificial intelligence software that can make operating drones more efficient and less dependent on humans. “Naval drones can be used both automatically and with the help of the operator,” says Fedorov. “Right now, artificial intelligence is used for target recognition.”