According to Andriy Lebedenko, Ukraine has created an "innovative ecosystem that allows it to combine production, research and the Armed Forces of Ukraine". In this ecosystem, the Armed Forces of Ukraine express their wishes or requirements for weapons, equipment or technologies supplied to units to perform combat missions. Scientific military institutions, in turn, study the processes and needs at the front, as well as threats from the enemy, to improve technical solutions or apply them in new forms. And production responds promptly.
"Such a structure will allow us to accelerate the issue of advanced innovative technologies, provide easy access to them for the Armed Forces, and ensure communication with industry to scale up in the shortest possible time, respond quickly to threats that change daily, make changes to technical solutions, make requests to our production or to foreign partners," the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces said.
According to Lebedenko, it is in terms of technology that Ukraine is currently lagging behind Russia. "We don't just need to assemble drones, we need access to technology. When we are not dependent on the supply of electric motors and controllers, we will be able to adapt to the situation and enemy electronic warfare more quickly," he says.
Today, Oleksandr Syrskyy's deputy emphasizes that Russia is using reconnaissance and strike systems - Orlan, Zala, Supercam - very effectively and with a great advantage, integrated with certain software that analyses and creates target catalogues, promptly distributes tasks and executes them.
"The classical approach to fighting them is expensive missiles, which, in principle, we have - we manufacture or buy, but it is a waste of resources. Every downed unmanned reconnaissance system has its price. So why not look towards air-to-air unmanned aerial systems, which will make it cheaper to destroy an enemy drone. But we need the technology," Lebedenko said.
"We have separate reconnaissance vehicles, we have the means of destruction. Now the task is to put it all together, to reach the most prepared enterprises that will be able to make sure that we have air-to-air and air-to-ground systems, which, unfortunately, are not available in the complex. In the future, this will give impetus to the use of artificial intelligence and the application of swarm technology. A combat swarm. This will significantly increase efficiency," the General Staff representative adds.
According to Lebedenko, it is through technology and the latest weapons that Ukraine can compensate for the enemy's numerical superiority. It will be able to replace riflemen on the front line with robots, replace bomb disposal experts, etc.
"Our task is to shorten the path from an idea or an urgent demand to large-scale production or the introduction of a technology as much as possible," he also said.
According to Lebedenko, the Armed Forces aim to create a communication platform through which a manufacturer can directly contact the Armed Forces with its product, receive assistance with paperwork, evaluation, professional testing and support for the product (if it is identified as a priority) for contracting, induction and mass production.
In addition, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief said that the state intends to train professional engineering staff to work with unmanned systems. The relevant concept has already been developed, although it is currently closed.
"We have schools, training centres (for UAV operators - Ed.), and they need to be scaled up. We will collect as much information as possible from the best practices or schools that exist in different brigades and forward units. We will generalise it and scale it up as much as possible. We plan to have junior specialists, such as sergeants and operators, in place in a short time. Unit commanders - professionals - in 3-5 years.
We also initiated the issue of including training for such specialists in military departments. And the involvement of specialised institutes to train engineers and robotics specialists, because today manufacturers (in the defence industry - Ed.) also do not have enough professional staff. And this is a problem that should be solved not only by the Armed Forces or the Ministry of Defence, but also at the state level," Lebedenko concluded.