Presented by Project Q:
SPOTTED: At The Arsenal’s Fourth of July party in our Kyiv office:
Deborah Fairlamb, Founding Partner at Green Flag Ventures.
William Tonkins, Defence Industry, Procurement, Innovation and Joint Enabling Defense Advisor, NATO Representation to Ukraine.
Victor Shapovalov, CEO & Founder of ZMIYAR.
Diana Tsymbal, PR manager at the platform Brave Inventors.
Vladyslav Polit, PR & Events Manager at BlueBird Tech.
Roman Pavlov, Codification Specialist and Lawyer at BlueBird Tech.
Olesia Husieva, PR & Communications Manager on the Ukrainian team at ARX Robotics.
Kyril Jakimovič, CEO of Pavetra.
Aryna Korshunava, European Defense Corporation, Comms Manager at Pavetra.
Oleksandr Serhiienko, Head of Government Relations and Sales at MPS Development.
Lydia Smith, Research Fellow at Kyiv School of Economics.
BLUF:
Almost 50 companies have already joined Ukraine’s private air defense initiative, which is open to any company whose employees complete training provided by the Air Force and receive certification. The first shoot downs were reported back in March 2026.
Ukraine is lacking Patriot systems and in one wave of recent attacks it didn’t intercept any of almost 30 ballistic missiles that were launched by Russia.
Stellarion’s Deadliner Q1 is one of five Ukrainian drones selected for the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program. Breaking through logistical and permit issues, the team is ready for the next phase of testing in August 2026.
Russia modified Gerbera drones by equipping them with additional fuel tanks. They are used primarily for reconnaissance.
With new army reforms, military brigades in Ukraine are working to recruit foreigners. 427th Unmanned Systems Brigade Rarog has launched a project and has almost assembled a platoon of foreign nationals to serve as drone prep technicians.
This allows current Ukrainian technicians to be sent to be trained as drone pilots, thereby increasing the number of crews.
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A Message from Project Q: Connect Any System. Accelerate Every Mission
Hydris is an open-source orchestration layer for rapidly integrating and coordinating every sensor, unmanned asset, and decision-support application into one taskable operational picture—one teams can act on, not just watch. The way there is composable: operators build mission sets from a growing ecosystem of plugins—open source, self-hosted on private registries, or commercial capabilities delivered with Project Q's partner network—and share them as mission packs across any transfer channel, even fully offline. Its API-first architecture, built on a single shared entity model, correlates tracks at the edge and shares the picture across the network, with no vendor lock-in and no point-to-point integration. Hydris is developed by Project Q GmbH and available under Apache 2.0. Learn more at projectqai.github.io and github.com/projectqai/hydris.
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Professional movement, promotions and industry news.
Know someone in the defense tech space who has made a professional move? Drop us a line at [email protected]!
Line Rindvig became Chief Strategy & Defense Investment Officer at Baryon Fund, a venture capital fund that invests in defense-tech and dual-use startups across Europe with a focus on Ukraine.
Alexander Detsiura started working as the head of business development at General Cherry, a Ukrainian drone developer.
Tech Force in UA, a union of private defense producers, is seeking a legal analyst.
G-Next Intelligence is a technology company developing an innovative platform for real-time data collection, processing, and analysis. The company uses AI-powered capabilities to help structure fragmented information faster and turn it into actionable insights in complex operational environments. Its products deliver strategic advantages where precision and speed are critical – from defense operations to humanitarian missions.
“Modern defense is no longer limited by the amount of data - it is limited by how fast that data can be turned into a decision. G-Next was built to solve exactly that problem,” said Oleksii Teplukhin, founder & CEO of G-Next Intelligence.
The company is currently looking for a new €5M investment to scale product development, expand integrations, and support deployment in defense and critical infrastructure use cases.
The British-Ukrainian company Firebolt Engineering is scaling up production on the Griffen jet interceptor drone. Designed to intercept enemy kamikaze drones, the Griffen can go up to 350 km/h, hit altitudes of over 7,500 meters, and get as far as 120 km, making it a more cost-effective option than anti-aircraft missile systems.
The VATAG unmanned ground vehicle has passed field testing. The UGV is equipped with a hybrid power unit and can be used for logistical support, as a mobile power bank for equipment, and for combat missions. It has a payload capacity of over 2 tons and can be equipped with a 25 mm weapon station.
Russia modified the 9М723 ballistic missile of the Iskander-M complex, adding the Kometa-M12R-VT autonomous guidance system to bypass Ukrainian EW.
The Ukrainian machine-building company Spalah has developed the Hart machine gun mount. An analog of the Soviet ZPU-2 twin-barreled machine gun mount, it hits aerial targets and is used as part of the Czech Victor air defense system.
The DOT-Chain Defence platform has launched a Drone Builder, allowing military personnel to customize a drone's configuration for a specific combat mission at the ordering stage. This enables units to receive drones that are ready for immediate use upon delivery, eliminating the need for post-delivery modifications.
