Марія Бровінська War 20 July 2026, 09:00

"Either Europe will learn from Ukraine, or Europe will be taught by Russia." Will Ukraine become the EU's defense laboratory: Ukrainian deftech manufacturers respond

While the leadership of the Ministry of Defense in Ukraine has just changed, and the industry is still discussing whether it will be possible to maintain the pace of reforms without Mykhailo Fedorov, another discussion is taking place in Europe in parallel: whether the Western defense industry is ready to even come close to the speed at which Ukrainian deftech works. The topic of integrating Ukrainian defense experience into European defense policy has been heard more and more often in recent months — from Eurosatory to the Ukraine Recovery Conference.

dev.ua talked to representatives of Ukrainian deftech companies — DevDroid, SKIFTECH, BlueBird Tech, Frontline Robotics, Himera, and Dwarf Engineering — about why European manufacturers are not keeping up with the Ukrainian pace of innovation, what they have already learned and what they still do not understand, and what partnerships between Ukrainian and European companies really look like.

Europe is not keeping up with Ukraine’s pace

The common thesis of almost all respondents is that the speed of Ukrainian innovations is not an advantage, but a forced reaction to the daily pressure of war.

DevDroid R&D Director Oleg Fedoryshyn puts it bluntly: «Most solutions are born when a specific problem needs to be solved. In Ukraine, these problems arise every day, which is why innovations appear very quickly.»

European manufacturers, he said, do not yet have such an urgent need, so they most often buy or refine solutions that have never been tested in modern warfare. The situation, however, is gradually changing — for example, the topic of interceptor drones became relevant for Europe after they saw its effectiveness in the Middle East.

According to Fedoryshyn, it’s not just about motivation, but also about corporate culture: large foreign companies operate within procedures and numerous internal approvals, and this sometimes reaches the point of absurdity — even a trip to a meeting in Uzhhorod or Chop, where missiles don’t reach, is unacceptable for many due to internal corporate restrictions.

«Their procedures often override common sense. We are largely guided by necessity and common sense, so we can act much faster,» he emphasizes.

Business Development Manager Global SKIFTECH Artem Vdovenko adds another dimension to the problem — the focus on a long product life cycle. «At international exhibitions, we saw examples of solutions costing over two hundred thousand euros per unit, although these were systems that were actually used once. This well illustrates the difference in approaches,» he says. The Ukrainian model, Vdovenko argues, is the opposite: «We create solutions that perform a specific combat mission as effectively as possible today, understanding that in a few months they may need to be modernized in accordance with new challenges.»

In turn, CBDO Frontline Robotics Mykyta Rozhkov explains the gap due to the industrial paradigm. «Many European companies find it difficult to adjust because they still live in the paradigm of industrial development of the 60s, 70s, 80s, which are fundamentally different from today’s,» he analyzes. At the same time, it is precisely those European companies that are more deeply immersed in the Ukrainian experience and directly on the battlefield — Rozhkov mentions Quantum Systems, Stark, and Eric Schmidt’s developments such as Hornet and Bumblebee — that are developing noticeably faster than competitors that are disconnected from this experience.

«It is precisely the proximity to the real user on the battlefield that radically accelerates the development of European companies compared to those that remain disconnected from this experience,» he concludes.

IntBDM Dwarf Engineering Max Getman believes that the Western defense industry has been built for peacetime for decades. «They have a lot of bureaucracy, certifications and compliance. To launch a new drone or electronic warfare system in the EU, you have to go through circles of hell, tenders and approvals, which take years,» he states, contrasting this with the Ukrainian pipeline through the Ministry of Digital Economy, Brave1 and a network of startups, which is completed in weeks.

Will Ukraine become Europe’s defense laboratory?

When asked directly about the status of the «laboratory,» the answers were divided more in tone than in substance. Vdovenko believes that Ukraine has already become a center for practical validation of defense solutions — and this is confirmed by the constant questions of representatives of foreign companies at Eurosatory: «Has this solution been tested in combat conditions?» — according to him, this question was especially often asked to manufacturers of unmanned systems.

BlueBird Tech CEO Valery Zarubin, on the other hand, deliberately avoids the phrase «weapons laboratory.»

«I wouldn’t use the term ‘weapons lab.’ In my opinion, Ukraine is already emerging as one of the new global centers of technological innovation, where defense tech has become the most dynamic direction of development,» he explains.

According to him, Ukraine’s success is not a single technology, but a combination of engineering solutions, production, management, and people who are able to adapt quickly, and simple and cheaper solutions often turn out to be more effective than complex products of large defense corporations.

Rozhkov believes that there is no alternative for Europe: «Either Europe will learn from Ukraine, or Europe will be taught by Russia.» And Getman states that the process has already taken place and is realized in Brussels. «It has already become it, and Brussels understands this perfectly well. It is not for nothing that they opened the Defense Innovation Office (EUDIO) in Kyiv,» he notes. According to Getman, Ukraine is the only testing ground in the world where technologies are tested against a strong technological enemy, and without such testing, any Western novelty remains just a theory.

What Western companies have learned — and what they still don’t understand

Almost all of the interlocutors agree that the key lesson for the West is the need for scalable, rapidly modernized solutions instead of isolated high-tech systems. Fedoryshyn illustrates this with an example from his own experience: «I like it best when they ask how to maintain the system for 5-10 years, how to properly store or maintain it in operation,» he says, referring to the contrast with reality: most of the tools created two years ago — FPV drones, wings, ground robotic complexes — are almost no longer used today. The life cycle of technologies is measured in months, not decades, he emphasizes, and it is not enough to purchase a solution — it must be constantly integrated, adapted, and tested in combat.

Hetman formulates the same thing through specific examples.

«Western companies are really blown away (in a good way) by our flexibility. They are learning from us how to cross civilian and military technologies for a pittance — from ordinary Mavics and Starlinks to 3D printers in basements,» he says.

But what they still don’t understand is the speed of the enemy’s evolution. According to him, the frequencies on drones and, accordingly, electronic warfare, change every two to three weeks, or even faster. «What worked last month is already junk today,» warns Getman. Ukrainian decentralization of production — when hundreds of small companies assemble drones across the country so that production does not depend on a single strike — still sounds like fantasy to their huge centralized factories, he says.

Vdovenko mentions another underestimated factor — production sustainability: Ukrainian companies were forced to quickly decentralize processes in order to maintain continuity of work even under constant attacks, while for most European manufacturers this is not yet a priority issue, although security challenges are increasingly demonstrating its importance.

What partnerships really look like

According to the companies, there are not many concrete partnerships yet, but the direction is clear.

DevDroid recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace during the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026 — the agreement paves the way for long-term cooperation in the production of remotely controlled combat robotic systems.
BlueBird Tech cooperates with European partners according to the «Danish model», when partner countries finance the purchase of Ukrainian weapons directly from manufacturers for the Ukrainian Defense Forces. According to Zarubin, the company does not yet have its own production sites in the EU, and joint venture formats are mostly at the discussion stage.
Frontline Robotics went further than others: in a strategic partnership with the German Quantum Systems, the company created a joint venture Quantum Frontline Industries. «Now it is actually the only company that so deeply combines European production culture and Ukrainian military-technological experience. Quantum Frontline Industries is becoming the largest manufacturer of small universal copters in Europe — no other company currently has similar production volumes,» says Rozhkov. The company also names Germany, the Baltic countries, and the Nordic region among its active partners.
Himera signed a memorandum with Finnish Bittium on cooperation in the field of secure tactical communications — the parties will work on solutions for the defense forces of Ukraine and Finland, combining the technologies and combat experience of both companies.

SKIFTECH cannot currently disclose details of the partnerships due to confidentiality agreements, promising to announce them in official press releases after the procedures are completed.

The most skeptical assessment of the very nature of these partnerships is given by Hetman from Dwarf Engineering.

«The media often thinks that the Europeans have come to save us with their technology, but the reality is the opposite,» he denies the widespread perception.

According to him, European manufacturers have practically no own developments in the FPV segment, and for most NATO generals, kamikaze drones are still more of a toy than a mass procurement category: «Top analytical centers in the US and Britain (such as RUSI and CNA) directly write about this: European defense giants are reluctant to go into FPV, because the margin is low there — it is more profitable for them to sell one large reconnaissance drone for a million dollars than to deal with thousands of cheap kamikazes,» Getman quotes the analyst.

He calls the Baltic countries, which created the «Drone Coalition» the most active, but, according to his observation, they are mostly stewing in their own juices, trying to write their own closed solutions autonomously:

«Defense One’s analytics confirm what we see in practice: their software (navigation, computer vision/MAD) is created in laboratory conditions. At a training ground in France or Germany, everything is beautiful, but when it comes under the influence of electronic warfare, it simply goes „blind“ because they don’t have our datasets,» he explains.

Hetman describes the motivation of European companies that enter into negotiations with Ukrainian manufacturers quite pragmatically: «For them, a partnership with Ukraine is the only chance to enter a live market, because only we have real demand and funding in the millions. They come, open representative offices here, and integrate with our developers in order to simply absorb our experience and somehow adapt their hardware to real war.»

At the same time, Hetman argues, Ukraine is not a junior partner in this exchange, but a mentor:

«We are definitely not the „younger brother“ here, we are mentors. We give them unique software and a test drive, and in return we beat them out of financial grants, investments and access to a high-quality European component base and safe factories in the EU for the future.»

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