Ukraine offers its front line as test bed for foreign weapons
WIESBADEN, Germany (Reuters) -Ukraine will let foreign arms companies test out their latest weapons on the front line of its war against Russia's invasion, Kyiv's state-backed arms investment and procurement group Brave1 said on Thursday.
Under the "Test in Ukraine" scheme, companies would send their products to Ukraine, give some online training on how to use them, then wait for Ukrainian forces to try them out and send back reports, the group said in a statement.
"It gives us understanding of what technologies are available. It gives companies understanding of what is really working on the front line," Artem Moroz, Brave1's head of investor relations, told Reuters at a defence conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Moroz said there has been strong interest in the scheme, but did not name any companies that have signed on to use it and declined to go into more detail on how it would operate or what, if any, costs would be involved.
More than three years after their invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces are pressing a grinding offensive across the sprawling, more than 1,000-km (620-mile) front line and intensifying air strikes on Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine is betting on a budding defence industry, fuelled in part by foreign investment, to fend off Russia's bigger and better-armed war machine.
Brave1 - set up by the government in 2023 with an online hub where Ukrainian defence companies can seek investment, and also where Ukrainian military units can order up arms - had drawn up a list of the military technologies it wanted to test, Moroz added.
"We have a list of priorities. One of the top of those would be air defence, like new air defence capabilities, drone interceptors, AI-guided systems, all the solutions against gliding bombs," he said.
Unmanned systems in the water and electronic profile systems on the ground are also on Ukraine's list of priorities, as are advanced fire control systems or AI guidance to make howitzers more accurate.
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