The US Defence Innovation Board has stated that Ukraine's recent successes on the battlefield have been underpinned by a technological advantage over Russia. This was achieved through the integration of readily available commercial technologies into the army and their rapid development. According to Censor.NET, Militarnyi reports this.
They noted that the technological capabilities of the Ukrainian Defence Forces have been enhanced through direct interaction between programmers, engineers, project managers and soldiers on the front line. This interaction is supported by volunteers and start-ups and funded by private sources.
However, this grassroots approach remains poorly suited to scaling up at the national level and to engaging with foreign partners.
Analysts believe that the state should become the main manager of the development of Ukraine's technological potential. Currently, the Brave1 military technology development cluster plays a key role in this, taking over some of the tasks of the Ministry of Defence.
"While Brave1 has done a tremendous job of developing Ukraine's defence innovation ecosystem by facilitating international contacts and accelerating public defence procurement processes, the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff of Ukraine lack a consistent approach to rapid capability development," the article says.
The Council noted the lack of departmental coordination between developers and the military, so the MoD cannot properly formulate and communicate the military's requirements and requests to industry or foreign partners.
"The MoD and the General Staff of Ukraine have de-prioritised the Ukrainian Defence Contact Group (UDCG) coalition's drone and IT teams, giving priority to the armour, artillery and ammunition teams. This prioritisation reflects the urgent need for core combat platforms, but also shows the lack of capacity in the Ukrainian MoD and General Staff to articulate and lead a rapid process of technological capability development," the analysts explained.
How to solve these problems
The Defence Innovation Board presented a number of recommendations to the US Department of Defence.
Thus, the US government should strengthen cooperation with Ukraine in the field of technology development and lobby the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff of Ukraine for this policy.
The US Department of Defence should also launch defence and technology capacity building projects that will help Ukraine develop the necessary personnel, IT infrastructure, and production facilities. The practice of allocating relevant grants by Canada, the United Kingdom, and Norway is cited as an example.
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