A necessary by-product of the ugly war in Europe is that in three years Ukraine has built perhaps the most productive and vibrant defence industry startup ecosystem in the world.
It is an unpalatable reality that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has become an innovation accelerant. For Ukraine the conflict is existential. But the war that has become a real-time laboratory for DefenceTech innovation.
The Ukraine government launched its Brave1 innovation platform in 2023 to build a DefenceTech startup ecosystem that is plugged directly into the national defence efforts. Ukraine is in a fight for its life, and has harnessed vast troves of battlefield data to create an innovation engine.
The results have been stunning. Hundreds of dual-use and DefenceTech startups either being founded in Ukraine or attracted from like-minded countries around the world, which has in turn attracted huge pools of seed capital.
In this episode of the Commercial Disco podcast, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko talks about the structure of the defence innovation ecosystem in Ukraine – and why it is important for the Australian Defence Force and for local defence startups to engage.
Ambassador Myroshnychenko has been in the role since March 2022, arriving immediately after Russia’s invasion on Ukraine in February of that year.
In the three years since, he has been a tireless advocate – as you would expect – for support for the war effort, and has been successful in marshalling significant Australian Government support in the form of Bushmaster fighting vehicles, tanks, cash and training support among other things.
But in recent months, the Ambassador’s message has taken a pivot. He now says battlefield innovation is occurring so fast and is so fundamental to the way that wars are now fought, that Australia can’t afford not to be fully engaged.
Whether it’s drones, or autonomous drone swarms, artificial intelligence, cyber security or cyber offensive operations, long-range artillery or autonomous undersea vehicles – there are vast amounts of invaluable data being generated to inform innovation decisions.
The Ukraine government’s Brave1 startup initiative creates a platform through which startups can turn their ideas into prototypes for battlefield testing in weeks rather that months or years, and to have immediate access to battlefield data to make improvements.
It is no surprise that Brave1 program originated with Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister and minister for digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov.
Mr Fedorov led the Ukraine’s digital transformation, including the launch of its national Digital ID in 2019, which holds citizen’s driver’s licences, enables banking services and holds credentials like college certificates or university degrees.
More recently, or since the invasion to be more precise, citizens are now able to buy war bonds through the Digital ID or even identify and geolocate Russian forces and send that information directly to Ukraine’s defence and security apparatus.
Ambassador Miroshnychenko says the battlefield data is key to everything, and so it makes sense that Brave1 was a joint initiative between the Digital Transformation ministry and the Ministry of Defence, with collaborations from Ukraine’s national security and intelligence agencies.
“The data that we’re currently getting from the battlefield is invaluable,” Ambassador Myroshnychenko said. “Because now we have millions and millions and hours of video footage from drones operating in the battlefield.”
This can be used to improve tactics, techniques and procedures for defence forces, but to train AI’s as autonomy training data, he said.
“So there are different elements to how the data could be used, because we now live in the world of data.
“It all comes down how we process it, and how we use artificial intelligence to process it data. But definitely, there is a lot of value for your ADF (Australian Defence Force), but also for the [Australian] defense industry.”
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