Ukraine's Secret Weapon: The Points System Winning the Drone War | Andrii Hrytseniuk

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] I want to talk particularly about the Army of Drones bonus program.

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_01] Actually, it started with the idea of like a loyalty bonus program. If you kill more, if you destroy more targets, you can earn more points. And you can use these points to exchange these points for additional drones.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_00] And you've got, what, 400 drone units operating on the system? Do you see this becoming general doctrine adopted by other militaries? Is Russia doing something similar?

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_01] Brave One, actually the initiative related to drones and the new technologies that right now are widely used on the battlefield. This idea started in 2022 because Ukraine had to find some asymmetrical response to Russia aggression. Because we cannot compete with Russia with the amount of volume of resources.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_01] They have much more money than Ukraine, even together with all support from allied countries partners. And when we had a lack of artillery, we started to use FPV drones. When we had a lack of naval fleet, we started to experiment with naval drones. And this is asymmetrical answers.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01] And right now, after the years of adoption of new technologies to the battlefield, the whole world globally understood that it was the right decision and the right direction and the right strategy. And this is one of the reasons why Ukraine still keeps Russia on their position and we are not conquered. Yeah.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_01] And in 2003, in one year after the start of full-scale invasion of Russia to Ukraine, when the results of army of drone projects became obvious, it was official parking, if I may say, of this initiative to government agency. The government agency was the name of the innovation development fund, existing in Ukraine.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_01] And it became Brave One, like a brand of innovation development fund. I see.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_01] And this is the idea of establishing Brave One was to have the single platform in the country where military, different armed forces, government institutions, private companies produce drones, universities, international partners, international companies can work together to have the maximum level of synergies. And the idea of the role of synergies of synergy.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_01] Right now, the 2026 and the area of responsibilities of Brave One are permanently increasing every quarter because the things that we are doing and implementing proves that it's right and it should be scaled to different areas. Initially, it was started just with UAVs and naval drones.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01] Right now, it's covered all non-conventional warfare and reforms and modernization of the technologies, processes, regulation, experimental weapon. And it covers almost every category.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_01] Missiles, precise ammunition, naval drones, ground robots, electronic warfare, satellite communication, satellite optical navigation, regular communication, everything.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00] I want to talk particularly about the Army of drones bonus program. I mean, that to me is fascinating. That now tracks hundreds of thousands of confirmed hits and kills through a central leaderboard. How exactly does Brave One plug all that data into and turn it into points on the platform side?

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_00] To me, that sounds like a very complicated task.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01] Actually, it was started with the idea of loyalty bonus program. And the idea is very simple and non-standard and innovative or revolutionary, if I may say.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_01] If you kill more, if you destroy more targets, you can earn more points and you can use these points to exchange these points for additional drones. With these additional drones, you destroy more targets and this is like a motivation system. Sometimes, here's that this is gamification system, but actually it's not gamification. It's more motivation and increasing of effectiveness.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_01] And such a simple idea, we start to implement it. And there are a lot of components in the overall architecture of this bonus system, including a delta system where the hits can be uploaded together with video materials.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_01] This is the special verification teams under Brave One that on a daily basis works with these uploaded materials, perform verification and do confirmation. This is Brave One marketplace, the system where Ukrainian drone producers can publish their products. And there are the passive pay for these drones with these bonuses. I see. Also, dishboards and analyticals and more.

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01] And in the initial phases, we even didn't, wasn't able to predict what will be the impact on the overall situation by this simple idea.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00] First of all, I want to ask, where did the idea come from? You were in banking. Did it come from loyalty programs in banking?

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_01] No, it was on one, it was one meeting and Mikhail Fedorov suggested, I have an idea. And we started to discuss and a number of people were involved. In very short period of time, we launched marketplace and then parallel the system of calculating bonuses.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00] The technology stack, can you explain for listeners and to myself what Delta is?

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01] Delta, this is a situation awareness system, a command and control system. It started as a system, but right now this is ecosystem. That party components can be added and enhance the functionality of Delta in very, very different areas, on different layers, brigade level, platoon level, small teams level, overall army situation level. This is the backbone of our digital army.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00] Delta, within Delta, there's an AI target recognition layer called Avengers. Is that right?

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_01] One of the modules of Delta called Avengers. Yeah. And in a number of modules or subsystems, we work with AI. This is the AI infrastructure platforms that allows companies and developers who produce models to train their models versus real data. Because Ukraine has the biggest in the world set of video materials, audio materials, radio materials.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_01] The data has been processed and special data sets were created. And right now, this is a unique and very valuable set of data that is used to train artificial intelligence components that are used in different warfare. If you are a developer of the interceptor, that is used to shoot FPV drones or Shahid, you can generate data.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_01] And this generated data, this is very small amount to train the artificial intelligence AI model. Because the huge amount of data are needed. In the military world, the biggest amount of military data is inside Delta. And inside Avengers and Brevan data room. And the data is processed. And it's in format that is usable by AI to train and increase the efficiency.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. You have all of these units on the front line who are launching drones, FPV drones. That video feed is uploaded to Delta.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_01] We have map. The military units after hitting of the target. Clicking on the map, specifying what was and by whom and by which product, which drone, what drone has been used, where it was happening. With video and uploading the video confirmation. And after that, on the map, in the system, there is a confirmation and the verification team is verifying everything.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_01] And either confirm or not to confirm. Because in real situations on the battlefield, there are a lot of cases when one target, let's say tank, is attacked by different units. I see. But to have the transparency and to take right management decisions, the real hits has been counted once.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_01] Because in traditional military world, every unit will write the report that we destroy tank. And only digital system can ensure the so-called duplication and to have trusted data. And when we tell that 35,000 Russian soldiers has been eliminated, we have a guarantee confirmation that it was not double booking.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_01] In reality, the number of destroyed Russian soldiers is higher. I see. But 35,000 of them per month has been confirmed with the video materials.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So each unit uploads a video. But in order to confirm a strike, you need an observing drone that watches the strike as well as the FPV video feed of the strike. You need both of those to confirm the strike?

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01] There are different rules for different targets and different ways to get this confirmation. I do not want to go into very specific details. Sure. I need not to care with Russia how to manage the situation better. On high level, you're absolutely right. Two confirmations are needed. Because we do not want to have mistakes in calculating the situation.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_01] And the Army of Drones bonus system provides to the country trusted data.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_00] There is also data that's sent back out to drone operators. Is that right? The drone operators or the units can see on a map where different Russian assets are. Is that right?

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01] I would not go into these details. But we know 24 per 7, every Russian soldiers that try to do something. We see Russian tanks. We see Russian activity. And we use it to destroy as much targets as possible. And this is our strategy how to stop the war.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_01] Every month, we need to increase the number of Russians destroyed to force them to stop the war. And right now, we see that the number every month, we destroy more Russian soldiers than they are able to mobilize. And this is one of the ways we are impacting Russia to achieve the goal that the whole world would like to achieve. To stop this fucking war.

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_00] And UA drone ID on a map identifies each drone as a friend or foe. Is that right? So that you reduce friendly fire so you don't attack your own drones.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_01] When we see in parallel with increasing automation level, we need to implement the technologies that can in automatic mode inform the effectors. Is it enemies or our drone? Of course, because we won't waste the efforts and destroy our drones. Unfortunately, sometimes it happens. But of course, we are working to avoid this.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Does that system also identify personnel? Can it distinguish friend or foe?

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01] Greg, no comments in this area.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_00] Okay. Okay. So can you walk us through the full life cycle of an E-point in the bonus program? Confirm strike in Delta to E-points in the unit's account. And finally, to an order for drones on the Brave One market.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, sure. You hit the target. You upload the materials and put the target on the map. The verification team of Brave One is verifying and either confirming or rejecting. The unit can send the appeal in case it was rejected but the unit ensures that it was destroyed. Of course, we are playing with artificial intelligence to automate routine procedures and minimize human work.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_01] And after that, in Brave One marketplace, in our military Amazon, every unit see the number bonuses on their balance, on their account. They can select the drones that they need today, right now, that are the most needed by the unit.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_01] And they click to send this drone to the shopping cart like in Amazon or eBay and to click order and pay by bonus. And after that, the number of bonuses, the balance is reduced. The manufacturer sent the drones to the unit.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_01] And after that, within five days, the money comes to the account of producer, manufacturer of drones. And in this way, we see that in comparison with traditional legacy procurement procedures that exist in every country and works in centralized manner. When unions have to send reports, some requests to provide some drones.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_01] The Brave One marketplace, with this asymmetrical approach, with bonuses, the average time from clicking on the shopping cart, order the drone to get and to use it in two weeks. This is absolutely tremendous, important impact. Because in half a year, the drones that have been ordered half a year ago can be outdated.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_00] Right.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_01] But in case you get the weapon in two weeks, it works very quickly, receive exactly what you need.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And the vendors, are they all vetted by the Department of Defense? Or how does someone get their weapon into the marketplace?

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_01] Initially, the manufacturers register. They pass some compliance procedures, very short compliance, and they can publish their drones. The drone manufacturers select where they would like to be published. In public catalog or in private catalog, in closed catalog that is available only by military units. And after that, the drone manufacturers can certify their drones.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01] Pass some process of codification to get NATO code for this. And on this stage, it can be officially purchased by government, either in centralized way or drone bonuses can be exchanged with drones. In some categories, we even allow to use bonuses for non-codified, non-certified drones. And this is the responsibility of the unit.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_01] In case it sees that something is very interesting and needed and effective for them on the marketplace, they can not wait until the full certification process happens and instantly get these drones.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_00] I've heard a lot about the feedback loop between drone units and the manufacturers, that suggestions to improve and the manufacturers improve so that it's a very rapid iteration process with the manufacturers. Does that happen through GRAVE-1 or is there a separate channel that the drone units are talking to the manufacturers through?

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01] This is one of the most important areas of our work. The first rule of every product management is to listen to your end users and to get feedback from them. But imagine, in case you have your drone and 300 of different units use this drone. If you ask one unit, they can give you one feedback. In case another unit, you can get another feedback.

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_01] One of the rules of GRAVE-1 is to consolidate this feedback. I see. And to provide the holistic feedback and a refined summary to the manufacturers. And also, the GRAVE-1 marketplace is also used for that. We implemented a special feature and end users on the marketplace can comment, give some suggestions, ideas, and to put some scores. And this information is also seen and analyzed by the manufacturers.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_01] We are shortening the feedback loop. And in case we are shortening the feedback loop and simplification to get the access about this information. Because the military units and the manufacturers, sometimes there are a gap between them. Very often, in the majority of cases, even do not know each other and do not know to whom to ask. And Marketplace and GRAVE-1 and our technical expertise team is working on the feedback.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_01] And also, we use it to design new type of drones, new type of warfare, and asking and providing the tasks to the industry to work on solutions that will be needed in half a year, in a year.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And the marketplace, does that also, in effect, act as a leaderboard for the hardware? That units can see what the most popular drone is, they can see other units' comments? Or is there a leaderboard for manufacturers as well?

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_01] There are some dashboards and leaderboards that are available by manufacturers. But for military, they need much more detailed information. And not only the marketplace. And our data science, data analytical team of GRAVE-1, on a monthly basis, analyzing the raw data from Delta, information from the marketplace, from different other systems. And make a digest of bulletins and deliver to the end users.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01] And, of course, in every category, there are some leaders, there are some challengers. The situation is changing every month. And the end users via GRAVE-1 also get the information, what works better, what works worse, what is newcomer that show itself very good. And, of course, increase the awareness level from the manufacturer's side and from the military side.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00] The system awards different values for different targets. You know, more points for a tank than for infantry. Is there some place I could look up and see? No, you can't. You cannot.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_01] This information is available only for military. And it's classified information. But the possibility to change the number of points for every category is a very important value. When the management of the army or the country takes a decision that such category of the targets should be more important,

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_01] in a classic manner, it works via bureaucratical procedures and orders. Yeah. And you know that the discipline of execution of the orders or awareness about such decisions is pretty low. But with the bonus system, it works instantly. And that the military knows that this category of target can provide for them more bonuses.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_01] And they immediately start to hump for such category of targets. Because every unit would like to be higher in the chart, in this leaderboard. Everyone wants to be the first or be in top five, to be in top ten. And we see how the structure of hits is changing instantly, immediately after changing the priorities.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_01] I believe that every CEO of every company in the world will be dreaming about having such possibility to change the priorities of their units and their employees based on this decision that start to work tomorrow morning or within one hour.

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_00] Okay. So, none of this is visible to the public. I mean, I can't log on to BraveOne Marketplace or BraveOne Leaderboard and see what's happening.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_01] You can see the limited information. Not the full information. Only the information that is not classified and where the manufacturers, the drone producers put the checkmark. It should be in public. Because in reality, they publish their drones on their own websites. But here, the central, the biggest catalog of everything.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00] I see. What were the main behavioral goals when you designed the public leaderboard? Was it about rewarding high-performing units, getting more accurate battle damage assessment?

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01] A few reasons. Number one is to implement some kind of healthy competition. And it works. And we see that the number in this leaderboard, this is very important for the army management hierarchy. And this is the subject of discussion on daily meetings, weekly meetings, or different events. The second, this is the instrument how we identify the best units.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_01] The number of units that were absolutely unknown by the management, the army management, by the country management, show extremely good results. And this is the area how to identify them. We are using it to start to talk to them and understand how you did it. In case, average benchmark, let's say 10, but this team is doing 20.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_01] So maybe there's some reason. And this is the sharing of experience after that and the usage of this new experience. And also the outsiders as well to understand and compare the results with the amount of drones that were delivered to the team. And why it's so low.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_00] Is this changing the power balance between central planners and the frontline teams on deciding on procurement, on what they actually need?

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_01] Of course. We see that a lot of drone manufacturers that had limited volumes of procurement on the central level, in reality, that the technology was extremely good and effective and needed by the army. And the amount of sales in some of manufacturers increased in five, ten times in comparison with the centralized way.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01] And that this is also the implication of the new model. We started to analyze what exactly is ordered by units on this decentralized model. And we implemented the new approach 80 per 20. And when we are performing centralized procurement, we are selecting in every category the top products.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_01] And we are combining the top products from previous purchases and also from the marketplace. The companies that publish, the companies that publish, build new drone, deploy to marketplace, started to be purchased by units. In the next month, can come to centralized contracts in this 80% of volumes.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_01] So this is the way how we, in very quick manner, bring the new players to the market and deliver to the battlefield, not only new technology in a few items, in few pieces, but in scale.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. You've got what, 400 drone units operating on the system? A bit more. Okay. Do you see this becoming general doctrine adopted by other militaries? Is Russia doing something similar?

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_01] Russia, no. Because of the difference in the national culture. Russia, this is the country of slaves. Russia, this is the country of democracy and decentralized processes and autonomous things.

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_01] And for Ukraine and Ukrainian military units, manufacturers, everything that is needed from the government is to understand how to help them work better. How to eliminate problems that they are facing. And our approach to help the ecosystem. In Russia, it's vice versa.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_01] This is strict orders because this empire, and this is the mentality of empire. They are not free people. And freedom, this is not for them. They are slaves. But the US, France, implementing very similar approaches and technologies similar to marketplace and other innovations that prove effectiveness in Ukraine. And we are sharing with the light countries our experience and willing we would like to help. Yeah.

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01] Because it's important. Because Ukraine, this is not a receiver of the support. Right now we are the nature of the new technologies. And our mission is to help normal countries to become stronger and to stop the war and to prevent the start of the third world war.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_00] And are you actively working with NATO or with the US? Yeah. And is that in technology transfer? Are you licensing it to other militaries? Or you're just advising them how to build a system?

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_01] There are different models. There are different models of cooperation.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_00] How much have you spent on hardware? Do you have a sense nationally since 2022 as opposed to what a major power military would have spent during that timeframe? The US has spent billions of dollars attacking Iran.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_00] And it seems that you've been able to hold off Russia for years at a much lower cost. Do you have a sense of that cost differential?

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_01] Of course. And economics of the war, this is a very important aspect, war strategy. If you need to waste one million dollars to hit one Shahid that costs 50,000 dollars, this is in favor of the enemy. Yeah. Of course. And this is one of the reasons why interceptors appear.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_01] Because interceptors that cost a few thousands effectively destroy Shahids that cost 50,000. And this is economics of the war in favor of Ukraine, of defending countries. That's why when we identified in 2024, we saw the potential. And it became one of the most important areas of work of BRAE1 and Ministry of Digital Transformation to implement and to scale this technology.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_01] And right now we have more than 150 different Ukrainian companies who produce interceptors. And the market is not mature. And the new and new models, new and new approaches of intercepting, appearing on the market and inventing by Ukrainian and right now international companies. Three international companies who produce interceptors very actively works here in Ukraine. And they do amazing things.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_01] And as a result, the capitalization level of this company and market valuation became very high. because every company who would like to be the player in defense industry has to be here in Ukraine. And their products have to be tested. Sometimes we are shocked when the different countries buy the drones that have not been tested in Ukraine, but just declared that they work.

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_01] And the answer is, come to us. We are happy to help and test and give the recommendation, some validation report and recommendation report. And you can, after that, take a decision. Is it really a good drone that will effectively work against Shahid or is it just an illusion of having the defense or security?