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Russia is striking Kyiv with an intensity. And ballistic missiles hitting the Ukrainian. Almost 250 Ukrainian petrol. Attack triggered an explosion at a warehouse near Kyiv. To go to Ukraine is to glimpse into the future of war. My colleagues and I spent a week there under increasing Russian bombardment. Two months ago, Ukraine looked to be ahead, destroying targets deep inside Russia. Now Russia is escalating viciously striking civilian infrastructure from petrol stations to warehouses in Kyiv as well as cities closer to the front line. They are literally hunting with the FPD drones with the small drones in a series hunting civilians. Hunted civilians.
This is a war dominated by drones, data, and a relentless cycle of innovation. It's a warfare which looks increasingly dystopian, increasingly dangerous, and for which many in the West seem alarmingly unprepared. We saw this up close when we were the first foreign journalists to visit the command headquarters of the Nemesis Brigade, not far from the front line. Obviously, we aren't revealing any details that might identify the brigade's location. Nemesis, officially the 412th Brigade of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces, is one of the country's elite drone units. Founded as a battalion by a group of tech-focused civilians in 2023, it's become known
for its lethal effectiveness and innovative culture. It's run like a startup, data-driven and with a flat structure, led by people from business like Pavlov, its deputy commander. This is a battle room. Uh here is the uh battle groups uh pilots, intelligence and duties. Uh these are all people with large monitors with looks like they're playing video games. Yeah. This is the pilots and duties who uh watching uh online video from the drones from our drones intelligence from another units uh intelligence drones. So this is the uh heart
of the our battle room our brigade. These are the people who are contributing to the e-oint system that I saw in the brigade headquarters. I saw the screens where you had all of the different unmanned systems brigades in a leaderboard which one was doing better. Explain to me how that works. Every target which we uh strike uh have got some uh points some e points. So, uh planes, uh Russian troops, Russian tanks, Russian artillery, every target, uh number of points. So, uh the strike, uh should be confirmed by video and we get some points and the points is
like uh our rating. So, it's like a competition. Yeah, it's like it's it's like a good competition. Everywhere there is data, everywhere there are screens, everywhere things are measured. data uh is very important. Absolutely. Because uh in our brigade ines we uh work with a big massive of uh data from crews from uh battlefield from intelligence from planning. So it's like our base for do our job good. We're trying to be first unit which improve new technologies uh new ideas and new uh drones, new payloads and uh we have got our R&D um R&D group uh which uh
testing and uh making some new technologies. Every half year at least the world change The speed of this innovation cycle became clear to me when I sat down with Alexi Honcheruk. He's one of those techfocused founders of the Nemesis Brigade, a man who before the war had been President Zilinsk's first prime minister and the youngest in Ukraine's history. Can you explain to me because I think for people outside Ukraine it is a bit peculiar that civilians can decide they are going to found a battalion. How did you go about
it in Ukraine? Uh the story when the civilian people or people with the civilian background become the military leaders. This is very usual because when the big war started not army but nation fight. This is a war when the dual use products become more lethal than the weapons. So something wasn't created to kill people is killing people way better than a weapons. Uh that's why the role and the logic of industry is different. Now the logic and uh the architecture of many different military units looks different. It was obvious that innovations uh is something
which can allows us to resist and to survive. You're watching an interview from the economist. To get early access to our upcoming interviews and watch others from our archive, subscribe to The Economist by clicking the link above. That's why uh we created a group of people who decided to with a civilian underground to decided to build a battalion uh with this new logic with this new architecture in order to be efficient on the front line using the new technologies. So there was late 2023 that was this battalion that is where we are now in the headquarters of it's now a brigade.
Yeah. What was the culture that you wanted to set up for that battalion? The first idea was to create the we call it common sense territory. So it means that when you are building the culture of the unit on something which is obviously working in the civilian sector like an efficiency, transparency, openness for new ideas. We decided that our main values would be honesty first of all because uh the culture when you are uh telling the truth openly no matter what position in the organization you have uh creates a super important uh like basis uh for the culture. This that was
the first second was like resultoriented approach uh so to be focused on how to get a result not to explain why you can't and the third one was like creativity not very usual for uh for the army uh and the idea was based on assumption that the speed of changes it was already obvious in the year of the war it was already obvious that the speed of the loop the speed of innovation was would be crucial and we believed that it would be super important for a military unit and we was right I think so that's really interesting you had KPIs you had a culture
of openness and transparency and all designed to foster speed of innovation the loop of innovations uh requires not only the effective uh organization within the military unit but it requires uh faster and faster evolution of the technologies. uh for me it becomes obvious that it's necessary to build a vehicle in order to work with the venture capital uh and in order to have a better access for the partnerships with the big players and that's why I decided to build a London based company in order to attract investments and to bring investments uh to Ukraine in order
to support all the incredible engineering teams and to gather them together uh to give um access to the capital to give them bigger scale. The company Alexi co-founded, EU Force, is Ukraine's first miltech unicorn. It works with the Nemesis Brigade and others to ensure a constant cycle of innovation. How exactly do you make sure this innovation cycle is as fast as possible? to let you better understanding how it works. I would mention that uh in Ukraine you almost don't have TRL9 products. So what means TL 9? TRL is like technological readiness level uh from one till 9.
Uh when nine is uh like super good, super tested with uh hundred thousands or maybe millions uh devices and so forth. and 11 one is a prototype and technological readiness level uh for a military grade products was usually nine very rare eight mhm in Ukraine you almost never has this level of technological readiness level you always ready have good enough for a battle level let's put it like that this is a seven plus level why because when you have some drone and it's efficient and good today. It doesn't mean that in the 3 months it would be so efficient. Uh
the most obvious example is a bay car for example which like saved us first couple of months when the war started. Now it's on the front line you will almost never find it. So it means that the technology was super vital for us on the beginning now almost don't have a place on the battlefield in Ukraine. So and it's not because they are bad it's because the war is like changed a lot. This new type of warfare means the balance of advantage can shift quickly. Your goal is to kill the enemy, destroy their infrastructure, but to do so cheaply and efficiently. Has it become harder
to do that? Is it much harder to find Russian soldiers? Find Yeah, it's it's much harder today. every day harder and harder cuz they uh first of all uh not so lot Russian troops cuz uh all units in uh Ukrainian armed forces tried to kill Russian troops. So it's not it's not easy to find it and uh they know uh we look for them that they are hiding they also like yours underground underground hiding under covers uh under trees in the in the trees. So in this kill zone which is what 30 40 kilometers soldiers on both sides are underground nothing moves uh nothing moves without chances to be uh to be killed. Well, not and that will get
worse and worse or there will be more and more. Yeah. Worse and worse, more and more drones as the distance big and bigger, I mean kill zone bigger and bigger. Uh few two years ago uh you told me you was at the uh field hospital Ukrainian armored forces 7 km from the front line. Today 7 km even car uh will strike by FPV drones and we are beginning to see FPV drones in cities. Is that going to be the next thing if there was an FPV drone? Good question. Uh enemy uh have got technology for this techn. So will we see FP drone in K? I hope no. I remember my experience
uh at Donbas Kromatsk uh where all uh military people going to bring some coffee with a shotgun cuz a lot of uh enemy FP drones. I hope we not have uh something same in KE. You have to have a shotgun in case there's an FPG. This is a very horrific future. Yeah. Um Yeah. I hope we will not happen. Do you feel that you are seeing the future of war? This is the new kind of war. Yeah, absolutely. This is a new kind of war. As I listened to Pavlo and watched his soldiers in action, I felt that I'd stumbled into a surreal dystopian future. A future that is hard to imagine
unless you've seen it up close. And a future that many Ukrainians believe Western armies are not prepared for. The Nemesis Brigade took part in several exercises with NATO forces and trounced them. Does that mean that they are way behind? Look, this is a $100 million question. Maybe even more. Maybe 100. Probably more, I think. Right. I don't think that there is a general understanding, general consensus uh in within the western military elites. I don't think so. I think that this is a very a lot of very different ideas. Some of these ideas that okay, NATO is
still like safe enough and it's still a good tool to uh contain the potential aggression and they think that they have enough strategic power that uh it will prevent the potential attempts. But I don't think so. Why? because I think that the strategic power is still here, but it's super expensive and the future potential conflict is not about the super expensive stuff. It's about a lot of super cheap. And what's what is another lesson in Ukraine that the potential invader or potential aggressor will act like a terrorist but with the scale of the government. And this is what's
uh what's super important to understand now. So if you'll see now what's going on in Ukraine, they are literally hunting with the FPV drones with the small drones in the cities. Hunting civilians hunted civilians uh with the cities. And it's not because they think that they are not civilians, they are military. They are hunting the obviously civilian people. And uh it's not because Russia it's used to be it's not like they're crossing the red line. Uh I think that they are doing this because they can and I think that when if we are thinking about the potential scenarios how Russia
would escalate and would go with razor stakes the stakes wouldn't be how that we will kill your army. No, your army would be potentially safer than your civilians. So the potentially they would create a damage not to your army, they will potentially create a damage to your civilians. Well, FPV drones in western capitals hitting civilians. They are acting and they will act like a terrorists but with the governmental scale in the affordable mass concept. And we are not very far from this. Frankly, we are not very far. I think the next year uh so if uh two years ago we
had dozens of drones uh I mean the concentration uh on the front line uh now we have like hundreds and we very close to this thousand drones on that scale will require AI to coordinate them right that cannot be done by human operator we are very close to the moment when technology will allow one operator to coordinate a group of drones so it's not it's already exist but it's not exist existing scale. Uh so we are very close to the moment when one human being would potentially orchestrate uh the number of uh like drone operators and every this drone operator is controlling the group and
that's how the deep strike threat for Ukraine been involved. It was like a shahads. Mhm. And when Ukraine found a way how to a good answer on the shahed with the interceptors at the next stage uh was uh the shahed with the jet engine and it only a question of a time when Ukraine went to find a good answer on the shahads with the jet engines. But the next step and we already see this uh it would be a jet engine [__] or different platforms which will bring a smaller drones or swarms of smaller drones into the cities which will be like in a wild hunt mode will just hunt
the people and acting like a terrorist. Why? Because if they had an attempt, for example, to liberate the Donbos or something like that, they would never destroy cities and clean the territory literally with the aviation bombs, right? So, it's not about the territories. They don't care. They don't care about people. They want just to sit around the like world world table and rule the world. divide the world somehow to they want some political geopolitical recognition that they are superpower and they have a super right to decide something and to
to be in a special position at least in the region but Russia for Russia they have a way bigger global ambition I believe so that is an extraordinarily alarming prospect for Kiev and other Ukrainian cities in the short term jet heads with swarms of FPV drones attacked But then you also described something truly alarming for West European cities too. Imagine you were talking to the collected defense ministers of Western Europe. What are the top three things they should be doing now to ensure that they are prepared for that? So my first uh advice would be definitely to create
unmanned system forces with a new culture with a focus on a new culture with the open-minded people. will take the most craziest people from your uh army and deploy them to be responsible on this. Uh second, I think that encourage your local producer, local industry to be a part of this like innovative cycle. So to build a partnership with them because when the big war is coming, uh as I already mentioned, nation fight. So means all your patriotic organization in a city, all your territorial defense units, all your I don't know I like example of like all
your pizza delivery companies. So I mean all your organizations would potentially help you fighting with the enemy in your land. You're watching an interview from the Economist. To get early access to our upcoming interviews and watch others from our archive, subscribe to the economist by clicking the link above. So it means that understand that previously uh if these innovations and high technologies was a privilege of special forces. Now it's a duty of territorial defense units. means that your territorial defense units maybe don't need the shotgun or not uh don't need
a machine gun uh in a basement but need a like uh already equipped drone and the a very good understanding what should what should he do and what part of the of the game he should be involved if something would happens and third don't think that the battlefield exist in a old understanding we discussed the situation in Kiev right that two years ago you feel safe uh in Kiev now it's not so the same situation in Warso Berdine on I believe almost any uh European capital now battlefield can come to your city like that so within hours and the distance is not so big problem as it used to be so you can easily be in a situation
when uh you will need to move way faster than it used to be. I think that's a really interesting insight because when I hear you speak about your three priorities, I suspect the countries in NATO closest to the Russians are much further ahead in thinking about this than others. I hope so. I was going to ask you whether you would agree with that. I hope so. I like I think that they feel urgency uh way better and I think that they understand the potential enemy way better in this region. That's why they may be acting a little bit more active than the Western European
countries for example. Whether they understand what's what's necessary to do I don't know frankly. So, but Western Europe or NATO has a huge um potential jewel in this crown which is Ukraine itself. Yeah, Ukraine can be the partner that can provide this expertise. You can help train. You can be close partners. That is certainly what some in NATO would like to happen. Do you see that happening fast enough? Uh definitely not. So, Ukraine is already a partner as far as I know. So as you already mentioned the Ukrainian military unit participate in the military exercises. Uh a
lot of uh western military specialists are here. Uh so I think that uh Ukraine is transparent enough and is giving back enough the speed of innovations in Ukraine before the war. It wasn't so high. That's why I'm not surprised that in the countries without a hot water on the territory uh the speed is not high. They are capable to learn from our lessons because this lesson was very painful and Ukraine paid a huge price for us. The best war is a prevented war, right? Europe don't want to look like easy target. So the perception now is not is my perception now and the perception I hear now is that Europe is
not ready yet and this is a problem. So because even if they are ready they have some super secret power and super secret very well trained forces say I don't know I don't think so but even if we will think like that the perception is wrong for them. I believe that Putin think that in some next season he will have so big advantage uh over the European forces that he will play he could potentially play uh way more aggressive against Europe. not only testing the article 5 with the one shahad or a couple of thrones in Romania or in on the Baltics uh or I don't know Finland something like that. So you can just I don't know capture the um I don't know some small city on the border or you can do a
provocation killing civilian people. Nobody will respond with the nuclear weapon on this like small episode right but uh what it means that without a good response a strong response it would be a next step and then it would be the next step so the perception is super important here and the perception now is super not good for Europe it's hard to argue with that logic this may well be Europe's future but however much that alarms me. The real lesson of my trip to Nemesis is that the dystopian drone warfare that we may face tomorrow is already Ukraine's reality. These people when they are killing Russians frequently, that's the mission. What does it do to their psychology?
I think it's like a when you killed once is problem. When it kills once or twice, it's problem. I know kill or strike or destroy uh techniques uh military techniques many times it's like your job do you think there will be psychological effects after the war on people who have done this so uh I think the uh these people who killing enemy uh by the screen by the control pattern screen it's like a um not real emotion not so emotional when they can could kill uh them in real life. So it's like uh not real emotion. Sometimes it
feels very close when we were coming here with you there was a shahed very close and you were shot down. Do you ever feel naive asking this of a military commander but do you ever feel scared? Do you feel worried about your own? Of course. But so it's like uh very bad when you do not feel scary. It's it's abs absolutely not good and you uh do not feel the scary. You need to rest. So it's like a big trouble when me or somebody is from our guys. Uh don't feel scary.
