MacPaw founder and CEO Oleksandr Kosovan spoke to the editor of The New York Times about the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine.
MacPaw founder and CEO Oleksandr Kosovan spoke to the editor of The New York Times about the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Kosovan told the American editor about volunteer armies of software developers and engineers who are turning cheap, off-the-shelf technology into weapons capable of destroying expensive tanks and ships. «To survive, the Ukrainians have deployed fire-breathing drones, drone-jamming backpacks that protect the soldiers who carry them, and a system called Delta that gives commanders a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield, along with friendly and enemy drones,» the article says.
«Technologists are on the battlefield. They know what’s needed. They don’t rely on the government. They rely on volunteers who can provide something without even notifying the government. When it works,» he added, «the government is slow to adapt,» said CEO MacPaw .
The article, citing Anton Verkhovodov, a partner at D3, a venture capital firm that invests in applied defense technologies, says that Ukraine assembled about two million drones in secret, scattered workshops last year. According to him, no NATO partner has ever done this.
«Their know-how is unparalleled. You have thousands of engineers in Ukraine who have friends on the front lines and understand how wars are really fought,» the NYT quotes Verkhovodov as saying.
The author of the article recalls that shortly after meeting with Kosovan, a rocket blew out the windows of MacPaw’s Kyiv office. «But Kosovan and his book gave me hope that Ukraine could eventually recover, building a strong defense industry that would one day help protect Europe — and perhaps even the United States — from looming threats.»
«If you know Ukraine’s technological history, you can understand the country’s potential as an innovator in weapons and even as an important partner in building what NATO will need in the coming years,» the NYT notes.
