The UK and Ukraine are taking a big step forward in how they collaborate when it comes to developing military capabilities. The UK government has agreed to use Ukraine’s Avengers AI Labs database — a vast trove of information tracking Russian battlefield activities over the last several years — to train its own AI systems. Alongside that, the UK and Ukraine said they would collaborate on future military technology. Notably, the deal makes the UK the first international partner to use Ukraine’s Avengers AI Labs.
The deal was inked on Monday at a meeting in Kyiv between UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and it signifies two important things.
The first is that Ukraine continues to be a very valuable centre for nations and enterprises that want to build defence technology, and specifically to train the AI models that will be powering much of this tech. (Even as we are increasingly seeing chilling evidence of how battlefield AI is evolving and being used in ever-more autonomous applications.)
The second is that the new UK government that took over July intends to continue working closely with the war-torn country as the threat from Russia continues to be felt throughout Europe.
“Ukraine has become one of the world’s leading innovators in defence technology, forged through courage, ingenuity and the hard lessons of war,” Burnham said in a statement. “This groundbreaking partnership will bring together Ukraine’s unrivalled operational experience with Britain’s world-class AI ecosystem, giving us the opportunity to develop the technologies of the future, changing lives here in Britain and saving lives on the battlefield in Ukraine. By combining Ukrainian battlefield data with British expertise, we will accelerate the development of capabilities that not only strengthen our national security but better protect our critical infrastructure and growth in every postcode here at home.”
The UK’s use of Ukraine’s AI database is the result of plans laid out earlier this year.
In March, Ukraine’s deputy minister of defence talked to Resilience Media about the country’s intention to leverage the data it has been amassing in its war with Russia beyond its own use of it.
This was inevitable: tracking the movements both of its own drones and other battlefield activities and those of its adversary has produced a very valuable trove of information — a goldmine for training Ukraine’s soldiers and the AI systems they are using.
Technology companies have already been working inside and with Ukraine for a while now on developing military tech using the trove. It was logical that Ukraine would look for ways to use that data also to build stronger relationships with nations and other international partners — and to make some revenue from the data, as the case may be.
The architects of some of that work may have changed — the country now has a new Defence Secretary, and the deputy who talked to RM is now the Ministry of Defence Inspector General — but the news of the UK deal shows the plans that were laid out months ago are bearing fruit.
Ukraine today didn’t provide an update on how much data is in its war trove, but as a point of comparison, in 2025 it recorded 820,000 verified strikes against Russian targets, including details on how many enemy personnel were killed or wounded (240,000 of the strikes).
Avengers AI, meanwhile, tracks tanks, artillery, air defence systems, infantry, and aerial targets like Shahed drones and reconnaissance UAVs, from “thousands” of daylight cameras and infrared sensors. As of March, the platform was typically detecting more than 12,000 enemy targets each week. Developers from Ukraine and other countries have been getting access to that data to train systems.
The UK said that engineers, academics, businesses and military operatives from both the UK and Ukraine will be able to collaborate “to act as an AI cell to solve key national security challenges for both countries.”
What that may look like in practice longer term remains to be seen, but the idea is that what Ukraine might have in on-the-ground activity, it may currently lack in terms of institutional infrastructure, given the war, and so the UK will be tapping its network of universities, research institutes and industry players to complement and develop ideas.
For now, to test out how collaboration might look, the UK announced pilot projects involving three startups: Bristol’s Sintela, Oxford’s Mind Foundry and London’s Skyral, collaborating with Ukrainian counterparts.
One project will use buried fibre optic cable to feed into a “giant AI-enabled sensor” to work on a solution to “protect bases from protestors and hostile actors trying to gain intelligence.” It will be situated at an unnamed UK defence site, it said. If it works, the same could be rolled out to other critical locations like airports, prisons, railways and energy plants.
Another project will see the startups working on developing low-power, high-performance AI chips for drones, robots and other autonomous systems.
“Ukraine is pushing the frontier of defence innovation as they bravely resist Putin’s illegal invasion,” said
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, in a statement. “From supporting with military equipment and training to co-developing cutting-edge technology, the UK will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine for as long as it takes. By combining the UK’s world-leading scientists, engineers and tech companies with Ukraine’s unique battlefield experience and data, we will strengthen both of our nations’ defence and security.”
Separately, the UK PM gave a nod to defence firm MBDA to release classified information on UK components for the long-range missile, SCALP, to establish local assembly lines in Ukraine. The country has had a significant shortage of both missiles and missile interceptors and supplies from countries like the US have run short due to the war in Iran, so Ukraine manufacturing its own devices is seen by many as a solution, albeit one that ultimately takes a bargaining chip away from the countries supplying those blueprints.
