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ADVEReadNOWISEMENT
Foreign defence companies can now test their newest weapons in Ukraine, according to a new programme launched on Thursday.
Brave1, a defence technology incubator supported by the Ukrainian government, announced the “Test in Ukraine” initiative, where allied governments could hand over prototypes for drones, loitering munitions, naval drones, electronic warfare systems and AI-driven products for testing on the battlefield.
In exchange, Brave1 would return with a detailed report about how it performed on the battlefield and suggest any additional real-time changes that would have to be made.
Participants of the programme would also be matched with a Ukrainian manufacturer working on a similar technology for “co-production and faster deployment”.
“We’re ready to help companies from partner nations develop, test, and refine technologies that actually work on the battlefield,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, said in a press release.
“This is a chance to gain experience that simply cannot be simulated in a lab”.
Ukraine gets involved with EU rearmament efforts
Brave1’s announcement comes after a series of recent initiatives to bring Ukrainian defence tech start-ups into the broader EU rearmament effort.
Last week, the incubator announced the BraveTechEU partnership, which will see up to €100 million split between Brave1, the European Defence Fund (EDF), and the EU Defence Innovation Scheme (EUDIS) to build new technologies by funding defence hackathons, investor matchmaking and research.
The EU also activated a €150 billion “SAFE” loan instrument that lets states borrow money for joint defence projects. At least 65 per cent of the weapons’ components have to be sourced from within the EU or Ukraine.
It launched a joint EU-Ukraine Force on Defence Industrial Cooperation to integrate Ukraine into the “defence-tech ecosystem”.
Ukraine also signed a €67 million deal with Denmark to let their defence companies build their designs on Danish soil, which is the first of its kind.
Major European defence companies, including Sweden’s SAAB, Norway’s Kongsberg, French-German KNDS, Germany’s Rheinmetall, and the US’s Raytheon, are reportedly expanding their presence on the ground, according to a June press release from Ukraine’s ministry of defence.
Still, experts previously told Euronews Next that Ukraine should be included in “common planning,” with the EU because they are able to provide comments and criticisms of classic weapons that make up a good portion of their procurement strategies.