Notes from Kyiv: One Year Later
From innovation lab to global defense powerhouse
A year ago I wrote that Kyiv felt like the world’s fastest defense tech lab. Coming back, it has graduated from lab to defense powerhouse.
Three things stand out.
The first is the emergence of genuine champions. Swarmer (SWMR) went public on the Nasdaq in April — the first Ukrainian defense IPO. UFORCE (unmanned systems, best known for maritime drones), General Cherry (FPV and interceptor drones), and Airlogix (reconnaissance and autonomous strike UAVs) have all crossed unicorn territory. These are not wartime anomalies propped up by emergency procurement. These are businesses with real revenue, real customers, and capital markets now paying attention.
The second is a meaningful recovery of supply chain sovereignty. A year ago, DJI was omnipresent and unchallengeable — Ukrainian teams told me openly that nothing else came close. That dominance is eroding. Local manufacturers are filling gaps that only Chinese hardware could cover before, and the verticalisation I flagged as a direction in 2024 is now underway across multiple product lines.
The third is operational reach. Deep strikes have moved from concept to campaign — Ukrainian long-range systems have repeatedly hit critical Russian infrastructure, oil ports and logistics nodes, without depending on Western munitions for every mission. The volume of Ukrainian long-range drone launches grew from approximately 110 UAVs in January 2024 to 7,500 in March 2026, the first time in a while Ukraine surpassed Russia in drone launches. UGVs (the land robots I wrote about couple weeks back) have gone from sideshow to serious procurement category.
What these companies are not yet, despite all of the above, is being global leaders. And that gap is not about product maturity or revenue scale — on both counts many of them are already world-class. What’s missing is export, and the barriers are specific.
Dual-use companies are doing fine. Himera and Sine Engineering on communications, are selling globally with strong traction as Western armies scramble for the latest electronic warfare innovations. In general, drones and UGVs can be exported when they have been removed from their military capabilities.
For pure weapons-related companies, the picture is more constrained. Ukraine restricts exports to keep local production focused on the war effort. Some companies operate in a grey zone, opening foreign entities in Estonia, Germany, or the US to relocate IP and export from there — but that comes with real risk. The Ukrainian government has shown it can pull local contracts from companies that route business through foreign entities, reassigning them to domestic competitors. Deep strike companies learned this the hard way, to the direct benefit of FirePoint.
The Gulf illustrates the full complexity. Gulf states tried to buy Ukrainian interceptors: low-cost, battlefield-tested, exactly what they needed. The political barrier hit first — Ukraine wanted to keep its interceptors for its own conflict and use export approvals as leverage in negotiations, offering Ukraine’s drone technology in return for diplomatic support and energy deals. Some companies did sell into the Gulf: Merops was the most visible winner, largely because it is US-incorporated and wholly owned by Eric Schmidt. Then came the technical barrier: Ukrainian interceptors still require pilots, and the Gulf has almost no trained pilot pool. More fundamentally, always-on air defense cannot depend on humans being on the clock. The same logic that makes Patriot batteries work — autonomous, persistent, no shift rotations — is what Gulf customers need. Ukraine hasn’t built that yet (but is working on it). Yet, as part of the Middle East exports of interceptors, Ukraine has promised training, software updates and co-production lines for its technologies, laying the foundation for durable defence partnerships.
Teleoperation indeed is still widely used. This can be shown in army’s recruitment programs - advertising that you can defend your country from the comfort & security of cities:
Several opportunities remain open:
Maritime and underwater systems are underdeveloped relative to demand — U-Force’s valuation is a signal, not a ceiling. For instance, Ukraine has started to conduct the first counter-drone interception launched from an unmanned surface vehicle. We should expect to see more integration of air defense and sea capabilities.
Swarm behaviour at scale is still blocked, mostly by a communications problem.
Full autonomy for military systems. The push for autonomy is getting stronger - and we’re getting closer. Zelensky has announced he wants to conduct 25,000 missions with UGVs - that’s too much compared to the pool of available pilots at any given time. Besides, latency or camera freezing altogether can still plague teleoperated missions. An inflection point may be close, driven by advances in computer vision and the scale of real-world battlefield data Ukraine has accumulated and is now starting to integrate.
Ballistic missile interceptors are the biggest gap. Ukraine has become expert at intercepting drones and Shaheds but remains dependent on US Patriots for ballistic threats. A single Patriot interceptor costs $4M and is produced slowly. The Iran war has drained global stockpiles — the US has withdrawn batteries from South Korea, delayed deliveries to Switzerland, and asked Poland to transfer interceptors from its own inventory, a request Poland declined. A Ukrainian solution here would not just solve a local problem - it would be a global product.
Attritable cruise missiles for offensive operations remain a related gap.
My conviction coming out of this trip is simple. The question for Ukraine’s defense industry is no longer whether it can build. It has answered that. The question is which of these companies will make the leap from battlefield champion to global defense player. Some of them will. The ones that solve the export equation will be the next Ukrainian neoprimes and will reshape how the rest of the world thinks about where defense technology comes from.
April Global Fundraisings
True Anomaly, developing space warfare solutions, raised a $650M Series D led by Eclipse, Riot Ventures, and Paradigm.
Skydio, the largest US drone manufacturer, raised $110M at a $4.4B valuation.
Firestorm Labs, which builds containerized drone manufacturing systems, raised an $82M Series B.
Kelluu, building autonomous airships, raised a €15M Series A led by Nato Innovation Fund.