Ukraine’s path to NATO is looking shakier by the day, but that hasn’t stopped the alliance from pushing to integrate the country’s battle-tested tech into Europe’s defense tech ecosystem.
Late last week, as we were all enjoying our turkey, NATO and Ukraine unveiled a new competition called “UNITE–Brave NATO,” designed to accelerate the adoption of Ukrainian and NATO technology into each side’s defense sector.
Friends with benefits: The initiative, according to NATO, is the “first joint NATO-Ukraine programme on scaling prototyped and tested innovative technologies.” The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) is tasked with managing the first competition, and the Kyiv-backed Brave1 defense accelerator and marketplace will run things on the Ukrainian side.
Here are the program deets:
- The pilot program allocates €10M ($11.6M), split evenly between NATO and Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Affairs, to joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) innovation, frontline comms, and counter-UAS capabilities. More specific topics will be disclosed at the solicitation stage.
- On the NATO side, the funding will draw on the Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine (CAP), a multi-year €1B “trust fund” designed to transition Ukraine towards full interoperability with NATO and supply short-term, non-lethal assistance.
- Assuming the pilot is successful, the pool of grants is expected to scale up to €50M next year. SIGINT, c-UAS, EW-resilient navigation, and unmanned ground system technologies will be focal points for the initiative’s future competitions.
Teamwork: Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, said that the UNITE-Brave program will “accelerate the development of cutting-edge defence technologies and strengthen interoperability” and build “a more resilient, adaptive, and technologically advanced defence architecture for the entire Euro-Atlantic community.”
Open arms: Brave1, Ukraine’s procurement and investment hub run by the Ministry of Digital Transformation, has gone all in on bringing allied tech into the fold. Back in July, the cluster invited Western defense startups to test their tech on the battlefield through the “Test in Ukraine” initiative.
Under that program, companies ship their products to Ukraine with some online guidance in exchange for feedback from frontline forces. Sounds like a real win-win for all the Western startups making battlefield validation a selling point with buyers back home, and the UNITE-Brave program takes potential collabs up a notch.
Fast friends: In keeping with the whole “teamwork makes the dream work” thing, only joint Allied-Ukrainian proposals will be accepted for the competition to align solutions with Ukraine’s interoperability and capability requirements communicated to NATO.
“By matching these requirements to innovation priorities provided by Ukraine, UNITE BRAVE NATO competitions will help fund technological breakthroughs that meet urgent operational needs and accelerate a learn-by-doing approach to the Alliance’s rapid adoption efforts,” NATO wrote in the RFP.
The alliance is wasting no time getting this thing off the ground. Applications for the first competition are due in February, and the winners will be announced at the second Ukraine-NATO Defense Innovators Forum next spring. Who’s ready to make some fast friends on the frontline?