Ukraine offers front lines as testing grounds to foreign firms

If you're in the weapons making game, there is no substitute for real war experience

Ukraine invited foreign firms to use its front lines as testing grounds for new systems

Forty-five companies signed up in about a month. The Test in Ukraine program was launched in July by the country's Brave One Defense Technology Cluster

Think of Brave One as Ukraine's version of DARPA, but instead of taking years to develop new tech

Brave One wants to field new systems in weeks. It's been working with defense startups in Ukraine since 2023

but really branched out around the same time the war with Russia hit the three-and-a-half-year mark

Brave One put out a how-to guide for European startups looking to take part in the Test in Ukraine program

Companies can choose one of two options, either send their own personnel to Ukraine to perform the tests

or train Ukrainian soldiers on the ins and outs of the system and let them perform the field tests against the Russians and report back their findings BraveOne says it open to working with most any startup but is particularly interested in collaborating with makers of unmanned ground

and aerial vehicles, systems to counter those unmanned drones like directed energy weapons or

cheap missiles, and cyber technologies like AI-driven fire controls for howitzers. Test in Ukraine appears to be popular, attracting about one applicant a day since its inception

During a panel discussion at a defense expo in Ukraine, the head of Brave One said when it comes

to weapons development, everything happens faster in Ukraine. You don't have to wait for months for

testing, and feedback from technical and military experts comes almost instantly. Ukraine is betting

big on foreign investment in its defensive industry. There are agreements in place with

Europe's prime manufacturers like Ryan Mattel already, but battlefield innovations made by

smaller startups will continue to give Ukraine a fighting chance against Russia's much larger force

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