Former Deputy Minister of Defense for Digitalization Kateryna Chernogorenko held a panel discussion at IT Arena with the participation of military personnel working at the intersection of the front and the MilTech industry.
Former Deputy Minister of Defense for Digitalization Kateryna Chernogorenko held a panel discussion at IT Arena with the participation of military personnel working at the intersection of the front and the MilTech industry.
The conversation was attended by Volodymyr Gorodnychy, captain of civil-military cooperation (CVC) of the 412th Nemesis Unmanned Systems Brigade (formerly a game developer with 20 years of experience), Viktoria “Tori” Honcharuk, executive director, AB3.Tech, and Vitaliy “Gryva” Mamets, commander of the artillery reconnaissance battery of the 1st Dmytro Kotsiubayl Separate Assault Regiment.
The main theses and the most interesting quotes about how war is changing, why civilian MilTech is not keeping up with the front, and why the Armed Forces of Ukraine need their own fast-track.
According to the participants in the discussion, it is impossible to compare 2022 and the present — these are “two different universes.” The main change is not only in the “hardware”, but in the approach to decision-making.
Vitaliy (1st Separate Assault Regiment named after Dmytro Kotsiubayl): “We have completely changed the decision-making process — today it is based on Big Data… All decisions about the development of drones, their required number, and the unit’s budget expenditures are completely based on data analysis and the use of artificial intelligence.”
Volodymyr (412th Nemesis Brigade): “In 2022, this was the last Soviet or post-Soviet army. We were lucky that our partners supported us with equipment. Now we create more than 90% of all weapons in the context of drones ourselves. Now it’s a business approach: we calculate almost everything — the cost per launch, per interception, per target destruction — and look for the most effective solutions.”
While at the beginning of a full-scale invasion the army simply ordered technology from civilian developers, later the threat and countermeasure update cycle was reduced to a matter of weeks. The civilian sector proved too slow for such a pace.
Victoria (AB3.Tech): "Cooperation with the civilian sector became too slow for us, and changes too fast. The military understood: we need to create our own solutions. R&D laboratories in units quickly transformed from a tool for solving specific tasks into something systematic. The serviceman became an innovator, not just an end consumer."
Victoria Honcharuk gave an example of when it is the military that invents new tactics and applications for existing hardware, creating trends for the entire industry — as the NC13 unit of the 3rd Armored Brigade did, combining heavy bombers with ground robotic complexes (UGV).
During Operation Vivaldi, the invaders were attacked by NRC kamikazes dropped more than 10 kilometers deep. Before that, no unit in the world had dropped ground robots from the air — and even less had done so systematically on the battlefield.
When asked by Kateryna Chernogorenko what capability the units lacked the most, the military answered unequivocally: time to scale up and eliminate bureaucratic obstacles to procurement.
Volodymyr: "I would put industrial scaling first. We have a lot of cool technological solutions, we are starting to use them effectively, but it takes 6–10 months to scale them. Unfortunately, during this time the enemy is watching, adapting, and scaling in response."
Vitaliy: “We need quick money. The competition between the sword and the shield is very fast: we come up with a new tactic or solution, and in 2-3 weeks the enemy understands how to deal with it. The main problem of my unit is that we cannot find solutions with the necessary speed due to the lack of operational procedures for obtaining funds.”
In their opinion, a conversation with the Ministry of Defense is needed regarding fast-track: so that the unit can very quickly and cheaply purchase the necessary transceivers or receivers on the market.
Kateryna Chernogorenko noted in response that if in 2022 the "Army of Drones" project launched a fast-track for manufacturers, now such a fast track and special budgets are needed directly by military units that are opening their own R&D laboratories.
As technology changes daily, manufacturers outside the frontline lose their understanding of the real battlefield. That is why the military is forced to play the role of co-developers (Customer Development).
Volodymyr: “Every soldier dreams of a ready-made solution with one button. But the reality is different. Manufacturers themselves do not have a clear understanding of the battlefield. It is critical that they react extremely quickly. We do not have weekends or holidays at the front, and manufacturers must also respond instantly to all feedback from the front.”
Vitaliy: "If we are talking about FPV, we can do almost anything with them at the unit’s base. But if we are talking about radars or complex technologies, we will not do it ourselves. Or when we have come up with a solution and we need 1,000 such drones tomorrow, at this point we have to give the development to MilTech and order scaling."
According to the panelists, veterans should be the bridge between these two worlds. They understand the specifics of combat operations and can act as "translators" between the requests of the front and the language of engineers and business.
