Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov has told Ukrainian news agency RBC-Ukraine that battlefield drones should be “controlled from any city” and that “the future definitely belongs to unmanned aircraft”.
Fedorov spoke of the new technology alliance between the governments of Ukraine and the EU, which was presented at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome on July 11. BraveTech EU builds on Ukraine’s Brave1 defence technology initiative. It is a collaboration between startups, developers, investors and the military which will scale innovations and enable EU companies to test their technologies on the battlefield. Ukraine and the EU are each investing EUR 50 million in the initiative for the development, testing and implementation of technologies.
The first phase, or seed round, of the new initiative will begin later this year and Includes hackathons, establishing partnerships between Ukrainian and European companies and investors, R&D funding for Ukrainian and European startups, as well as testing for technology development in Ukraine for the needs of European defence companies.
Fedorov told RBC-Ukraine that BraveTech EU would most likely be “creating highly autonomous products, anti-guided aerial bombs, and anti-drone projects, such as those using fibre optics.”
“FPV drones and autonomous copters will evolve,” Fedorov told the news agency. “First, they’ll better identify and strike targets even under electronic warfare. Then, they’ll reach certain points without a connection. Eventually, drones will operate as a swarm in a shared network.”
When asked if Ukraine has a response to the barrage of drones launched by Russia, Fedorov said that interceptor drones are currently the most effective response. “I can only say what the President has already said – the solution has been found, it’s being scaled, and more than one company is working on it.” Meanwhile, companies that have reached certain solutions are already working on countering jet drones, figuring out how to operate in cloudy weather, etc.”
Fedorov told RBC-Ukraine that countering Shahed drones is a major challenge, adding that “Russia doesn’t have that problem; they have plenty of missiles and air defence systems” and “our air defences don’t reach their helicopters, but theirs do reach ours”.
Regarding remote drone operations, Fedorov said Ukraine will be launching a dedicated grant programme in this area. “We need to get UAV operators off the battlefield. Russia has created a Rubicon military unit that actively hunts our drone operators. So our mission is to enable remote operation as much as possible and eventually implement autonomy. That’s the next stage of warfare. The goal is for an operator to control a battlefield drone from any city in the country. Beyond that, full drone autonomy. But that’s probably a matter of years.”
For more information
RBC-Ukraine – Battlefield drones must be controllable from any city
Image: Mykhailo Fedorov with Andrius Kubilius, the EU Commissioner for Defence and Space (Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine)
