Наталя Хандусенко War 13 November 2025, 18:40

Ukrainian developer invested over $100,000 in MilTech applications that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been using for 10 years. How TacticMap and MyGun, which entered the TOP-3 of the AppStore, work

Yaroslav Sherstiuk — a former military officer, artillery officer — has been developing military tech applications for over 10 years, including MyGun (also known as «UKROP») for artillerymen, the MilChat tactical messenger, the ArtOS artillery fire control system, and TacticMap for working with maps. During all this time, Yaroslav says, not a single project has received state support: all products are developed at the developer’s own expense and by a team working on a volunteer basis. He told dev.ua about his most popular projects and the problems of their development.

TacticMap is an application that made it into the top 3 of the AppStore

One of Yaroslav Sherstiuk’s latest developments, the development of which the team is currently focused on, is the TacticMap application for the military and specialists working with maps and coordinates. Two days after its launch (February 2, 2024), TacticMap took 15th place among a thousand competitors in the «Navigation» section in the AppStore, and about a week later it was already in second place. In April 2025, the application was launched on Google Play. Currently, TacticMap has over 10,000 users on iOS and over 2,000 on Android .

«We are the leaders for iOS, because there are many alternatives on Android. In addition, the Android version was released only about 8 months ago. However, it is confidently catching up with the iOS version. In general, the audience is growing every day, of course, there are waves of new users and outflows,» Yaroslav Sherstiuk told dev.ua.

The geography of the application’s users has expanded far beyond Ukraine. Most downloads come from the US and Germany. There has been a significant increase from Poland after the Shahids began flying into the country.

TacticMap is currently available in Ukrainian, English, and Spanish.

New TacticMap features coming in 2025

The team has a rule of making updates every two weeks, so since the release, the functionality of TacticMap has expanded significantly. Among the most useful and most difficult to develop, Yaroslav highlighted the following:

Heatmap elevation — allows you to display visibility zones on the fly. This feature can be especially useful for UAV operators and soldiers who fire from a closed firing position. It gives an idea of how well the enemy can see you;
offline map — this function, according to Yaroslav, should be in every military application. The developer says that there are almost no applications with such a function in the AppStore;
UkropSync tactical situation sharing and synchronization service, for which we developed our own API so that users can store and exchange tactical situations with each other.

UkropSync is currently available to beta testers, currently over 200 military personnel. The main feature is that units receive a mini PC on which a server with the UkropSync API is deployed. That is, each unit independently manages data and users.

«In my opinion, in 2025, sending files from one application to another will be a thing of the past. In short, we are striving for federated and decentralized work with tactical data,» the developer added.

Yaroslav invested his own money in the TacticMap application — about $100,000, which includes the costs of developing versions for Android and iOS, as well as the Backend. But this amount does not include the costs of design, website creation, and marketing. Despite such investments, the application is unprofitable.

In order to be able to make some money, the team was forced to introduce paid subscriptions for additional functionality, as well as add localization for other countries.

As Yaroslav notes, Ukrainian society is not yet accustomed to paying for services, although the cost of a subscription is no more expensive than a cup of coffee. Currently, the number of paid subscriptions is small — up to 1,000 per month, and these are mostly users from other countries.

MyGun shooting app

However, TacticMap is not the only application of Yaroslav that made it to the top of the App Store. MyGun was also in the top three.

MyGun is the iOS version of the shooting app «UKROP» for Android. The name had to be changed because Apple did not allow the use of the word Ukrop.

UKROP is one of Yaroslav’s first software products. The application has been helping artillerymen on the battlefield since 2014.

MyGun provides calculations for shooting that take into account topographic, meteorological and ballistic training. It is paid and available in 9 languages on Android and iOS .

Applications have the following capabilities:

recording and saving elements of the battle order (observation points, firing positions, landmarks, etc.);
recording and accounting of scouted targets;
search by coordinates or name of settlements;
map operations (online and offline) to display the real state of combat operations;
determining your location using GPS with display on the map;
obtaining meteorological conditions for shooting;
target targeting using a rangefinder, combined observation, compass and UAV;
drawing a tactical situation according to NATO standards;
and much more.

The problem of attracting investment for military software

For over 10 years of military software development, Yaroslav has developed his products on his own without any investment.

In his opinion, the creation of a regulatory framework for the codification of military software would allow the state to purchase such programs, and developers to have the opportunity to earn on them.

«We hope that in the future the state will turn its face to us and the issue with military software will be resolved in the same way as, for example, with drones.»

Currently, Yaroslav believes, a monopoly has formed on the Ukrainian market, where Delta exists as a national project, and private companies are barred from entering.

The lack of regulation at the legislative level is also an obstacle to attracting investment, says Yaroslav.

«In my opinion, investors themselves do not understand how they will be able to return their investments if the state does not have a software procurement procedure.»

The team has already applied for a grant from Brave1 twice: first for TacticMap, and more recently for UkropSync. Both times, they were rejected.

«Attracting a grant from Brave1 was a hope for at least some funding for the team, which works on a volunteer basis, mainly Android and iOS developers. It was an opportunity not only to pay them for their work, but also to develop the project. For example, if a grant was received for UkropSync, they planned to provide the units with equipment and provide a ready-made tool for situational awareness,» notes Yaroslav.

But the team is not going to stop there and plans to apply for a grant from Brave1 for the MyGun app. The developer says: «If this application is rejected too, we will continue on our own, as we have all these years. Because we are doing the work that is needed on the front line today, not someday.»