The Ukrainian government yesterday launched an initiative to streamline and promote innovation in the development of drones and other technologies that have been critical during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
As part of the initiative, dubbed Brave1, the government hopes to bring state, military and private-sector developers working on defense issues together into a tech cluster that would give Ukraine a battlefield advantage.
“Considering the enemy that is right next to us and its scale, we definitely need to develop the military tech so that we can defend ourselves,” Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said.
Fedorov told reporters ahead of the official announcement that the government had earmarked more than 100 million hryvnias (US$2.7 million) to fund projects that have the potential to help Ukraine win the 14-month conflict.
“There are many people on the battlefield now of the young generation that can work with technologies, and they need them,” he said.
Ukraine and Russia make frequent use of uncrewed aerial vehicles for reconnaissance and in attacks. Russia extensively uses Iran’s long-range Shahed-136 exploding drones.
The Ukrainian government last year launched a public fundraising drive asking foreign donors to help it build an “army of drones.”
The Moscow-appointed head of the port city of Sevastopol in Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhayev, this week reported that Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian sea drone that attempted to attack the harbor and another one blew up.
Ukrainian officials stopped short of openly claiming responsibility, as they had done after earlier attacks on Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Oleksandr Kviatkovskyi, a board member of combat drone innovation nonprofit Aerorozvidka, sees Brave1 as a platform that the military can use to communicate its electronic warfare needs and provide strategic support to the military technology industry.
“Even one year to develop a product, it’s a very short time,” Kviatkovskyi said.
However, Kviatkovskyi said he is not sure that such a platform could create a significant boost for development of war technologies.
“Even if it does, it will be minimal,” he said.
“Few things can be more effective than the boost created by the tanks near Kyiv,” he said, referring to how Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from storming the capital during the first weeks of the war, which began in February last year.
Fevzi Ametov, a Ukrainian soldier and cofounder of Drone.ua, said that businesses and their engineers already try to incorporate feedback from military personnel into their products.
“Any assault without drones, right now, it’s like going blind into a minefield, and you don’t know what is waiting around the corner,” Ametov said.
“Technologies help save lives,” he said.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS