Ukraine leads race for defense innovation, Bundeswehr representative says
This was stated by Admiral Christian Bock, head of the Bundeswehr Innovation Center, in remarks to a Ukrinform correspondent on the sidelines of the New Age Defense conference in Berlin.
When asked who is winning the race for defense innovation today – Germany (and Europe) or Russia – Bock replied briefly: “Ukraine.”
Comparing the capabilities of Europe and Russia, he added: “We are starting to win. Why is that? Because we have the industry and we have the financial resources. And we have a partner like Ukraine to get all the information and then to use our budgets and our industry capacities. So, with that, we can win.”
According to the admiral, one of the main lessons of Russia’s war against Ukraine has been the need for constant technological adaptation to new threats and the creation of a flexible system capable of instantly implementing new insights.
“You have to learn the lessons every day in a new form because you are getting new impressions and new threats every day. With that you have to have an agile system to include on a daily basis all new experiences and to define your own system to be prepared,” he noted.
According to Bock, hardware and software are developing at different speeds. Since software evolves much faster, the key task for the Bundeswehr in peacetime is to model the processes that Ukrainians implement daily on the battlefield - the combination of various components and their parallel development at different speeds.
Against this backdrop, the head of the Bundeswehr Innovation Center particularly highlighted Ukraine’s ability to quickly adapt to wartime conditions.
“What impresses me most is the ability to adapt and to use what is available on the hardware side, on the software side, and the coherence society side to act against the opponent,” he noted.
As Bock emphasized, it is precisely the involvement of the entire society that is one of the key factors in Ukraine’s resilience. “It is not only the military that must deal with threats—the whole society must be involved. Furthermore, robots and unmanned systems help the weaker side have a better chance of becoming the victor,” the admiral stressed.
Commenting on Ukraine’s Delta situational awareness system, the Bundeswehr representative called it a prime example of rapid digital adaptation. “This is a good example to have an open source environment and not secured C2 system but which has been changing on other sides to be more secure. But through the speed of information and the adaptivity of your system, it's suitable for Ukrainian side,” he said.
At the same time, according to Bock, NATO cannot simply copy the Ukrainian system at this time due to security requirements. “For NATO side, it's at this very moment not possible to copy due to all security regulations. But yes, of course, we intend to develop similar solutions,” the admiral noted.
He added that the Bundeswehr is already working on a system that will integrate various unmanned platforms into a single digital battlefield picture: “We are responsible for having the algorithm to connect all different unmanned systems. And also on drone systems, drone threat.”
The admiral also emphasized that Germany’s future drone countermeasure system will be developed with consideration of Ukraine’s experience with multi-layered defense.
“We are accepting the requirements of this layered defense approach. Also, you need long-range defense systems and short-range defense systems and everything what's in between. So, we are adapting the system for our operational requirements," he said.
As reported by Ukrinform, the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to develop mutually beneficial cooperation with European partners, particularly in the area of strengthening the innovation and technological capabilities of the Ukrainian military.
