Since EuroMaidan, Ukraine’s IT sector has been hailed as the next “engine” of the country’s economy. CC BY 2.0 nigelpepper / Flickr. Some rights reserved.When Yuri Dobronravin tried to enlist in the Ukrainian military after the annexation of Crimea in spring 2014, officers at the recruitment station told him that his expertise in anti-aircraft systems wouldn’t be needed. Dobronravin, a programmer, had been active in the protests that toppled former president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 — and he wanted to use his technical knowledge in Ukraine’s emerging war against separatists and Russian regulars in the east. He started working as a volunteer programmer instead, creating digital maps of the war zone at a time when, as Dobronravin, puts it, “the Ukrainian army didn’t even have paper maps.”
Over the next few months, as fighting escalated and fears of an all-out Russian invasion spread across Europe, Dobronravin and a group of volunteer programmers developed complex military maps and communications software for the Ukrainian military. They called themselves “Army SOS” and soon, they brought the technology to UaRpa, a Ukrainian startup company founded by a former deputy minister of defense. Armed with a team of engineers, coders and other IT specialists, Ihor Kabanenko, the startup’s founder, says UaRpa grew out of the understanding of “the importance of technology in the new hybrid conflict.” Like DARPA, the US Department of Defense’s research and development arm, UaRpa is trying to prepare the Ukrainian army for “next generation warfare”.
The company now employs more than 100 people, and furnishes the Ukrainian military with a variety of advanced defense technologies, including laser anti-sniper detection systems, laser rangefinders, a tablet-based intelligence system designed to improve targeting and NATO-grade armour. It is, in essence, picking up the slack for state-run behemoth defense manufacturer Ukroboronprom.
