An army of startups to shore up Ukraine’s defense (and without Trump’s help)

In the photo, Ukrainian Ivan Frankiv, who has withheld his real name for security reasons, appears as a schoolboy who was very good at radio frequency. So good that he won a prize. Almost two decades later, someone remembered that and asked him a question: could he make a drone detector? “Everything had developed a lot since school,” admits Frankiv, now 31. “But in a month I created my first detector.”

It was spring 2023 in Ukraine, which was entering the second year of the large-scale Russian invasion. The invention worked. Frankiv began working with the National Guard and set up, together with several partners, the company Kara Dag Technologies. Last September they received a $500,000 grant from a U.S. investment fund. A successful venture that joins hundreds of small Ukrainian entrepreneurs who have supported the country’s military industry to mitigate Russia’s superiority on the battlefield, and with an innovative inertia that can withstand the ups and downs of major allies like the United States.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made this clear on February 24 at the meeting of international allies in Kyiv: “This is a technological war,” he said. There are infantry battles between the lines of trees that divide the terrain; there are tanks, guns, artillery, ballistic missiles and fighter jets. But the application of technology in this war is historic, and this is where Ukraine has tried to gain some advantage. According to a report by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), in 2022 there were no state investments in defense-specific startups; a year later the sum received by such startups was already $5 million; in 2024 it climbed to $50 million. And it continues to grow. Brave1, the government platform that facilitates the financing of defense technology, has supported some 1,500 companies and 3,200 projects with military applications in two years.

Frankiv’s life did not use to be like this. Before the Russian offensive, he worked in financial marketing. His dream was to live in Switzerland. For many months, that job allowed him and his colleagues to finance the production of drone detectors (at $400 a unit): a device the size of a cell phone, with a long antenna that can record the signal of a drone and neutralize it. When it passes, the enemy operator loses the first-person view he had on his monitor and the device falls or crashes. His clients say that 10 units can save the lives of 100 soldiers in a year. With the injection of the investment fund, they have quadrupled production. Their goal is to reach 300 units a month.

And they are not stopping there. The engineers at this company, with offices and laboratories in Kyiv and Rivne, are working on a device (a laser camera that scans the sky and interprets variations through artificial intelligence) to locate the latest challenge on the front: fiber-optic drones. “We were first told about them by a soldier from Zaporizhzhia,” says Frankiv. This is one of the small revolutions in the Ukrainian defense industry: like Frankiv, there are many entrepreneurs in this army of start-ups who maintain direct contact with the brigades at the front to produce according to the needs of combat.

The injection of these small private projects is part of a radical change in Ukraine from the outdated military industry model, in which only the state-owned Ukroboronprom manufactured, burdened by bureaucracy and corruption. This giant from the time of the USSR was transformed into the joint-stock company Ukrainian Defense Industry, with two objectives: to increase production through local arms companies — according to official data, there are 500 operating arms producers in the country, employing around 300,000 people — and to reduce corruption.

Two ministries are working in parallel: the Ministry of Strategic Industries and the Ministry of Digital Transformation. Furthermore, the demand for arms, driven by the Russian invasion, has required purchases and financing from overseas, which was absent in the past: the local platform Zbroyari attracted a total of $1.5 billion from nine donor countries in 2024 to finance national arms producers.

But if there is one mainstay that the entrepreneurial sector in Ukraine has taken advantage of, it is the production of drones (four million units in 2024, according to the KSE), a weapon used on the frontlines like never before in the history of conflict. At least now, three years after the start of the Kremlin’s major offensive; at the beginning, the manuals of conventional warfare were dusted off. “At that time, after the start of the large-scale invasion,” says Vasil, 40, “the Russians did not pay much attention to drones.”

Like many others, Vasil — the name he has chosen to protect his identity — had neither experience nor interest in military matters. What he did have was training in information technology, which he worked in. He realized that these unmanned aircraft could make a difference, but also that there was little training. He found instructors among operators in the film world, accustomed to handling these devices; he looked for land and asked the army for permission. In April 2022, together with several colleagues, Vasil started a drone school. The price for students: zero. The financing: their own funds, donations from individuals, and contributions from technology companies.

“Our motivation,” he explains, “was to protect people.” His school quickly became a popular center. And more sprang up to meet the demand. “We might not have been able to teach military tactics, but we could teach how not to waste a drone,” he notes. The school grew to train an average of 100 students a month. But the success of these devices in warfare has been such that many well-trained military instructors now teach in the field.

With less demand at schools, a new field of action is emerging: while Frankiv’s engineers are trying to figure out how to neutralize a fiber optic drone (guided via cable, these devices do not emit radio frequency signals that allow them to be rendered useless by technological means), Vasil’s partners have immersed themselves in the production of these very devices. They cost almost $1,000, more than double the price of conventional models, but their impact on the front is notable.

Shortly after Zelenskiy made those remarks about the technological nature of the war, the Ukrainian president took the group of international leaders visiting Kyiv to a small arms fair. Among the guests at the exhibition, on the business side, was Mikhail Rudominski, 25, founder of Himera, a company that makes tactical communications systems. “Before the war,” the young man says, “I considered myself a pacifist. I never thought I would do something like this.” With the invasion underway, Rudominski set out to create radio sets that were affordable for the brigades, that could be manufactured on a large scale, and that were safe from Russian electronic warfare. He succeeded in doing so in just two months. In the past year, Himera has raised more than $500,000 in funding from the local United Angels Network alone.

Rudominski says that one of the keys to success, as with Frankiv and his drone detectors, is getting closer to the front. “I have about 200 contacts in the army,” he says, “I ask them what they need and that way we are more efficient.” Employees of his company, which has around 50 workers, have travelled to within nine miles of the fighting to show their products. “It is a way of telling the military that we are here to help and not to make money,” he stresses. However, the success of these communications systems has already sparked the interest of several NATO allies, including the United States.

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