- Facing a better-resourced enemy, the Ukrainian military is now considering using dozens of drones built by start-ups operating from clandestine labs scattered across the country.
- Ukraine added a fourth branch of its military, the Forces of Unmanned Systems, in May.
- Employees at entrepreneur Andriy Denisenko’s startup can assemble an unmanned ground vehicle, called Odyssey, in four days in the company’s shed. Crucially, the ground drone costs just $35,000, about 10 percent of the cost of an imported model.
Struggling with labor shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international aid, Ukraine is trying to find a strategic advantage over Russia in the basements of abandoned warehouses and factories.
An ecosystem of hundreds of clandestine workshop labs is using innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.
Defense startups across Ukraine (around 250, according to industry estimates) are building killer machines in secret locations like rural auto repair shops.
South Korea preparing ‘Star Wars’ laser defense system to repel North Korean drones
Employees at entrepreneur Andriy Denisenko’s startup can assemble an unmanned ground vehicle called Odyssey in four days in their own warehouse, and the vehicle’s biggest selling point is its price: $35,000, or about 10 percent of the cost of an imported model.
Denisenko asked The Associated Press not to publish details about its location to protect the infrastructure and the people who work there.
The workshop is divided into small rooms for welding and body work, which includes building a fiberglass bed, spray painting the vehicle gun green, and installing basic electronics, a battery-powered engine, aftermarket cameras and heat sensors.
Andriy Denisenko, CEO of design and manufacturing company UkrPrototyp, stands next to Odyssey, a 1,750-pound ground drone prototype, in a cornfield in northern Ukraine on June 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Anton Stuka)
The military is evaluating dozens of new unmanned aerial, ground and naval vehicles made by pragmatic startups that are a world away from the manufacturing methods used by Western defense giants.
A fourth branch of the Ukrainian armed forces, the Unmanned Systems Forces, joined the Army, Navy and Air Force in May.
Engineers use inspiration from defense magazine articles and online videos to create low-cost platforms that can then be fitted with weapons and smart components later.
“We are fighting a huge country that has no resource limitations, and we know we can’t sacrifice too many lives,” said Denisenko, head of defense startup UkrPrototyp. “War is mathematics.”
Engineers from the UkrPrototyp design and production bureau work on developing a new component for a ground drone in northern Ukraine, June 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Anton Stuka)
One of the company’s drones, a car-sized Odyssey, spun on its axis and rumbled forward in a North Korean cornfield last month, kicking up dust.
The 1,750-pound prototype looks like a small, turretless tank with wheels on tracks, and can travel up to 18.5 miles on a single charge from a battery the size of a small beer cooler.
The prototype will function as a rescue and resupply platform, but can also be modified to carry a remote-controlled heavy machine gun or explosives for mine-clearing.
“The robotic forces will include logistics devices, towing vehicles, minelayers, minesweepers and even suicide robots,” a government fundraising page stated after the launch of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Corps. “The first robots have already proven their effectiveness on the battlefield.”
Deputy Prime Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov is encouraging people to take free online courses and build drones at home, and he wants Ukrainians to build one million flying machines a year.
Serhiy, a lead engineer at the design and manufacturing bureau UkrPrototyp, works on a 3D model of a prototype drone the size of a car and weighing 1,750 pounds, in northern Ukraine on June 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Anton Stuka)
“More coming soon,” the donation page said. “Lots more.”
Denisenko’s company is working on projects such as powered exoskeletons to enhance soldiers’ muscle strength and vehicles that carry soldiers’ equipment and help them climb slopes. “We will do everything we can to further accelerate the development of unmanned technologies. (Russian) killers are turning our soldiers into artillery fodder, while we are losing our best people,” Fedorov said in an online post.
Ukraine has a fleet of semi-autonomous attack drones and AI-powered counter-drone weapons, and the combination of low-cost weapons and artificial intelligence tools has concerned many experts, who say low-cost drones could enable their proliferation.
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Technology leaders from the United Nations and the Vatican worry that weaponizing drones and AI could lower the barrier to killing and dramatically escalate conflict.
Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups have called for a ban on weapons that remove human decision-making, concerns echoed by the United Nations General Assembly, Elon Musk and the founders of DeepMind, a London-based startup owned by Google.
“Cheaper drones will encourage more widespread use of drones,” said Toby Walsh, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. “Drones are only going to become more autonomous.”
