Will Ukraine withstand in 2025? Military personnel, arms manufacturers, and officials shared their insights at the UP forum.
"Statements from some partners are alarming and shocking. Few of us could have imagined that Russia and the USA would vote together against a resolution condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine. These eleven years have proven that no one will fight for us better than we ourselves," said the editor-in-chief of UP, Sevgi Musaeva, during her opening speech.
1 A common issue for businesses and the military is human capital. The mobilization reserve is dwindling, and factories are facing a labor shortage. This poses problems not only for defense but also for the country's infrastructure recovery.
The head of the newly established Ministry of National Unity Alexey Chernyshov noted on stage that there are 6 million Ukrainians abroad who left the country due to the war. The ministry expects that at least 30% of them will consider returning home.
They plan to start addressing this issue now by offering migrants jobs at defense plants with reservation. "We will create special employment centers, Unity Hub. Their task is to ensure that when a person crosses the border, they already have a status that prevents them from being mobilized between the border and the factory," Chernyshov remarked.
2 According to military personnel Svyatoslav Palamar "Kalina", Ukraine lacks an institution dedicated to healthy propaganda of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: both domestically and abroad. This would help attract more people to the defense of the country.
"We often reach out to various media requesting specific airtime to announce that the brigade is looking for volunteers. However, the media has a certain limit on social advertising, and when other organizations approach these media, they also utilize it. During wartime, we need to establish a limit on social advertising specifically for the military," Palamar proposed. The advertising for the Defense Forces should be based not on the self-sacrifice and heroism of Ukrainian soldiers, but on their professionalism,” Palamar suggested.
3 Mobilization has impacted the banking system. The Deputy Chairperson of the Board of Raiffeisen Bank Oksana Shevchenko noted that 20% of men from the cash-in-transit service have been mobilized, while cash for transportation has increased by 17% since 2022.
"We are creating an inclusive environment. We are open to hiring students, veterans, and retirees. We are cultivating our own specialists because it is becoming increasingly difficult to find them on the market. And, of course, technology is greatly assisting us. We started the digital transformation of the bank four years ago. Today we have 36 robots and machine learning algorithms that have helped us avoid hiring 150 people in customer service," Shevchenko stated.
4 "Young people aged 18-24 are not currently fighting. At the same time, tens of thousands of people are guarding military towns, maintaining public order, and conducting convoy operations. In my opinion, young people, except with their consent, should not be going to the front now. But we can involve them in securing facilities and train them during this period for the next war. I also don’t understand why a 25-year-old man who went to defend the country in 2022 does not receive the same "benefits" that a person who comes in at 23 years old might receive," Palamar summarized the panel on human capital.
Not all heroic Ukrainian units are well-known. According to the rating from the Ministry of Digital Transformation, in January, the most effective drone operators were military personnel from the National Guard unit Lazar's Group, which had remained in the shadows since 2022.
After the publication of the rating, its command decided to open up to the public and officially present their unit at the UP forum. It turned out that the unit was started by a small group of enthusiasts, and for some time it was based at the studio of the "Shuster Live" program. Now it has significantly grown, has its own drone production, and conducts reconnaissance.
Journalist EP Bogdan Miroshnichenko conducted a public interview with Roman, the commander of the combat drone unit Lazar's Group. The unit is currently looking for talented engineers and motivated operators.
5 During a break, UP journalist Mikhail Tkach and Sevgi Musaeva held an auction to raise funds for the needs of the 59th brigade. The first lot, a downed Russian drone on fiber optic, was purchased for 190,000 UAH by co-founder of VB Partners Denis Bugai. "It was important for me to support this collection because my assistant was killed; he fought in this unit," he noted.
6 7 The second lot, a watch made from an anti-tank mine, was purchased for 100,000 UAH by the founder of the Telegram channel "Trukha," Maxim Lavrinenko.
8 The third lot was an optical system from a Ukrainian tank that defended the Mykolaiv region in 2022. It was bought for 120,000 UAH by Oksana Shevchenko from Raiffeisen Bank. The funds raised will go towards vehicles for the Defense Forces.
9 The development of domestic military equipment and ammunition production was discussed in the "Weapons" panel, conducted by Maria Berlinska.
According to the head of the company "Infozashchita" Yaroslav Kalinin, over the past three years, Ukraine has come a long way, shedding a number of rudimentary practices that hindered arms production.
"We have changed our approach to warfare. We have broken the distance of direct confrontation at the front down to the distance of drone strikes. We are increasingly relying on automatic combat systems and technical means, and less on human resources," said the founder of LLC "Ukrainian Aerospace Technologies" Vladlen Nikitin.
As noted by the executive director of the NAUDI association Sergey Goncharov, during this large-scale war, the defense industry has undergone significant transformation. Previously, state enterprises held a large share, but now private technological companies are gaining more weight and responding dynamically to the challenges of war and the market.
0 However, according to the speakers, the defense industry can work even better, so the government should continue reforms.
"Ukraine produces significantly more Soviet-caliber ammunition than all our partners combined. But the war continues, so we must not stop developing our production. We need to fully implement long-term contracts, finance them, and continue interacting with our partners to load our production capabilities. It is also important to standardize weapon orders, which could reduce costs through scale," said the director of "Ukrainian Armored Vehicles" Vladislav Belbas.
1 At the same time, the issue of idle production capacity in defense companies remains acute, prompting thoughts about controlled opening of arms exports and more