In the past five months in Ukraine, Major Maksym Gromov’s unit launched 608 autonomous Lupynis drones against Russian adversaries. Four hundred and thirty-six of them found their targets—a 71 percent hit rate, with 284 of those strikes landing on moving vehicles and personnel. The kill zone his unit could cover tripled, stretching from three to ten kilometres.
If Ukraine could ensure even half of the drones it procures have automated terminal guidance, he said, it would transform the battlefield.
Gromov’s talk at “Autonomy and Sovereignty,” a closed-door event organised by Ukrainian defence technology companies The Fourth Law and Odd Systems, highlighted the remarkable progress these systems have made since their earlier iterations. Over 200 people from Ukraine’s military, government ministries, international industry, and the investor community attended.
Yaroslav Azhnyuk, co-founder of both startups, framed the strategic picture around three ideas.
First, autonomous remote drones and ground robots are no longer tools to support conventional units. Rather, they are becoming the primary platform for combat operations. Secondly, the capacity to mass-produce high-tech defence hardware and software is the “new oil” overtaking natural resources as the most consequential form of national power. And third, that the winner of the AI race will shape the security order for the next century.
The panel discussion that followed brought together Oleksandr Kamyshin, Advisor to the President of Ukraine on Strategic Issues; Oleksandr Bornyakov, Acting Minister of Digital Transformation; and Rick Smith, Founder and CEO of Axon Enterprise, the US taser and body-cam giant.
Ukraine, Smith argued, is innovating at a pace that most institutions and governments are structurally incapable of matching. For Axon, that makes the country a critical proving ground for technologies that will define the next generation of defence and security systems worldwide. (Axon invested an undisclosed amount in The Fourth Law last month.)
The Ukrainian government officials described a “reality gap”. Global capital and international partners rarely grasp just how fast the technological situation on the front lines is evolving.
Azhnyuk outlined The Fourth Law’s roadmap for autonomous systems across air, land, and sea domains, arguing that these platforms are capable of altering the course of the war over the next year. He showed footage from successful combat missions and teased a series of new products, with formal releases expected soon.
Supply Chain Risk
One out of every five thermal imaging cameras produced worldwide now ends up in Ukraine. To put that in perspective, The European Union’s entire annual thermal camera output would cover just three to four months of Ukrainian demand at 4 times the cost. Dependence on Chinese manufacturers is an unacceptable risk. Explained Roman Medvedev, Odd Systems’ CEO, and Andriy Taganskyi, Camera Unit director.
The answer they propose is vertical integration. Odd Systems announced “Odd Camera Factory One,” described as Ukraine’s first factory for the serial production of camera sensors.
“What we are creating here is the roadmap for deterrence in the 21st century,” Azhnyuk said. “Sovereignty in the modern era is measured by the autonomy of your systems and the resilience of your supply chains.”
Ukraine’s defence innovators are no longer scrappy improvisers making due. They need scale, capital, and cutting edge manufacturing. Whether these will be obtainable at the needed speed remains a question.
