What happens when college-age engineers have three years to reinvent warfare? You get a basement situation room that looks like a tech startup but controls weapons that terrify Russian forces. You get workshops where Seattle barista lookalikes turn children’s toys into precision missiles. And you get military innovations that Western armies are now scrambling to understand.

We drive through automatic gates into an open courtyard where autumn flies buzz in the still-warm air. Past a sleek modern façade, quirky sculptures, and multi-layered terraces, this looks like any Silicon Valley startup. Except this compound sits near Ukraine’s frontline, where young engineers have three years to solve a problem every military faces: how do you win when the enemy has more of everything?

In an undisclosed location near Ukraine’s frontline, young Ukrainians are solving problems that military academies worldwide are still trying to comprehend. Their solutions are already changing how wars are fought—and every military planner from Washington to Beijing is taking notes.

When war meets tech startup aesthetics

The control room basement looks like a mix of a home cinema and a White House situation room. Three men and a woman in trendy t-shirts sit at computers facing giant TV screens. Live drone footage streams across displays framed by close-ups, text comments, and maps. Small x-marks appear, followed by puffs of white smoke spreading on screen. This isn’t a video game—real drones are hitting real targets.

“The second one has been kicked out by the EW,” says an operator, eyes glued to his screen. Everyone wears earphones—unclear whether they’re coordinating with each other, pilots kilometers away, or both. Electronic warfare plays out invisibly above every mission.

“These are coordinators providing information to pilots working in dugouts,” explains the commander, an athletic man in his 40s. “Drones can fly up to 20 km with retranslators attached.” The technology sounds simple. The coordination represents warfare’s future.

A blonde woman with a ponytail speaks urgently: “Watch out! On your left!” She’s guiding someone she’s never met through a mission that could save Ukrainian lives or eliminate Russian equipment worth millions.

Detailed maps cover other walls. A glass coffee table displays a moving map on its surface. The environment screams high-tech minimalism, except for sticky tape dangling from the ceiling—black with dead flies, tiny legs and wings spread like miniature antennae.

Near the exit, a large drone resembles a cosmic barrel.

“A Vampire,” the commander says. “Russians call it Baba Yaga.”

Russians nicknamed this Ukrainian drone after a folklore witch because it haunts their troops at night—too heavy and loud for daylight operations. Beyond its intimidating engine and broomstick design, the real threat comes from thermal imaging and anti-tank mine payloads. Bypassing Russian electronic warfare, Baba Yaga autonomously finds targets, drops up to four shells per flight, and returns home. Each mission eliminates multiple Russian positions.

Where children’s toys become weapons

The workshop reveals the secret behind Ukraine’s drone advantage: rapid adaptation.

Ten young men with hipster beards work in cubicles, melting and welding metallic parts and motherboards. Wires and bright blue Lego-like components pile on white desks. Shelves display FPV drones with black propellers jutting out. This tech incubator produces 60-70 combat-ready drones daily.

The supervisor, call name Diver, looks like a Seattle barista and grins constantly.

“We change kids’ toys into weapons,” he says matter-of-factly. “Government supplies standard commercial drones. Not useful as-is. We adapt them—attach retranslators so they fly further, change frequencies to avoid enemy electronic warfare. We fly at non-standard frequencies, say 700.”

Every innovation sparks countermeasures, demanding counter-countermeasures.

Three 3-D printers churn constantly in the corner, manufacturing custom parts. The base technology comes from DJI, China’s drone giant, but the weaponization happens here, in a workshop that operates under strict operational security.

Diver claims not to know how drones reach the workshop—possibly stretching facts, but operational security matters most. Russian missiles would target this facility within hours of discovery.

Life in drone territory requires new rules: no daytime driving, special vehicle coverings at night, drivers wearing night-vision goggles instead of headlights. Enemy reconnaissance drones hunt constantly.

David vs. Goliath: Innovation vs. mass production

Drone warfare boils down to one principle: innovate faster than your adversary. Ukraine faces the classic startup challenge—superior innovation versus superior resources.

“Russia has a DJI factory, giving them volume advantage,” Diver explains. “We lead in innovation but can’t match production. We’d love technology exchange with the West—show them our combat-tested inventions while getting AI solutions, camera stabilizers, night-vision goggles.”

“We access existing technologies and cooperate with national labs,” the commander adds. “But sometimes we reinvent wheels, wasting time on technologies the West already developed.”

The human cost is real, he emphasizes. “During that time, we lose people. We can’t afford it. We’re pushing flight distance to 40 km to hit Russian artillery.”

“Ultimately, we want to fly these to Moscow,” Diver laughs.

The economics of precision killing

The second floor houses testing. A slender woman with dark hair leads software development—she resembles Trinity from The Matrix and laughs when the commander jokes she could hack anything—the Kremlin, possibly.

Four laid-back young men test drones, attaching loads and ensuring flight capability. High ceilings allow indoor test flights—each calibration could determine mission success.

“These are kamikaze drones—FPV drones carrying explosives and blowing up on impact,” Diver explains. “More precise than ‘drops’ from Mavic drones. Kamikaze is way more cost-efficient. They cost $300-400 versus $3,000 for artillery strikes. FPV has become standard ammunition.” The math is brutal: cheaper weapons winning against expensive ones.

Hi, I’m Zarina, a frontline reporter for Euromaidan Press and the author of this piece. We aim to shed light on some of the world’s most important yet underreported stories. Help us make more articles like this by becoming a Euromaidan Press patron.

“Business management helps in modern warfare,” the commander notes. “This production costs 30 million hryvnias monthly [$720.3k] for materials—spare parts, 3D printer filament, excluding ammunition,” says the commander. “We need more production machinery to make things locally.”

When old meets new in war

Technology isn’t the only battlefield. Training pilots reveals deeper challenges every military faces: adapting old hierarchies to new realities.

“I strongly believe that training needs to be done close to the frontline,” the commander insists. “Not in Kyiv or Odesa. We retrain pilots after those rear schools teach outdated methods.”

Another officer arrives with fighters for technical retraining.

“Drone warfare is new. It is not included in the classic textbooks,” he says. “There’s always clash between new and old. Old-school commanders stick to Soviet rules. It doesn’t work.”

This institutional resistance isn’t uniquely Ukrainian—militaries worldwide struggle with similar transitions.

Sometimes qualified drone operators get sent to dig trenches—misallocation that costs lives.

“The frontline is redefined. This isn’t WWI. I just ordered a ground drone—basically a remote-control car. It evacuates wounded, delivers supplies, does mining and demining. We need people for sophisticated tasks and must save lives.”

“Our soldiers train in the UK and report mental gaps upon return. Our tactics are landscape-specific—desert methods don’t work in forests.”

He sees opportunity for knowledge exchange.

“We should send our instructors abroad—Western militaries would benefit from our hands-on experience. We’re developing drone warfare export potential. These evacuation drones could revolutionize urban warfare.”

But the human cost weighs on him.

“Our people need breaks to recharge without combat stress. Mental burnout is real—it’s about rest, not just skills.”

Your military is studying this

Ukraine’s drone workshops aren’t just about survival—they’re laboratories where warfare’s future gets written in real time. Young engineers transform commercial toys into precision weapons while adapting to Russian countermeasures under constant missile threat.

While Ukrainian ingenuity leads innovation, production scale remains the challenge. Western collaboration could bridge this gap decisively.

Every defense contractor is analyzing these cost equations. Every military academy is rewriting textbooks based on lessons from workshops that look like startups but operate under existential threat. Ukraine isn’t just defending territory—it’s pioneering methods that will define the next decade of global conflicts.

Technology is Ukraine’s chance to win the war. This is why we’re launching the David vs. Goliath defense blog to support Ukrainian engineers who are creating innovative battlefield solutions and are inviting you to join us on the journey.

Our platform will showcase the Ukrainian defense tech underdogs who are Ukraine’s hope to win in the war against Russia, giving them the much-needed visibility to connect them with crucial expertise, funding, and international support. Together, we can give David the best fighting chance he has.

Join us in building this platform—become a Euromaidan Press Patron. As little as $5 monthly will boost strategic innovations that could succeed where traditional approaches have failed.

Zarina Zabrisky, Euromaidan Press war correspondent, reflects on daily life under drone fire in Kherson, as the United Nations confirms these attacks were deliberate crimes against humanity.

Russian armed forces have committed murder of civilians as crimes against humanity using drones, concludes the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine in a new report just out on 28 May 2025.

This confirms what the people of Kherson knew for months: Russia is targeting civilians from across the river with drones. They are not aiming at military sites. They are hunting people.

Russia’s “human safari” reaches all-time high

By May 2025, the Russian military’s “human safari” is at an all-time high in Kherson, the regional center in the south of Ukraine. Khersonians, keen on defining the horrors befalling them, gave this macabre name to a relatively new Russian tactic: commercially made, small drones hunt and kill civilians.

Mass drone attacks started in Kherson in winter-spring 2024, and intensified by the end of July.

Taking videos and photographs of drone attacks used to be virtually impossible, as such footage might cost a reporter their life or limb. By spring 2025, however, not only is “human safari” a term recognized worldwide, but the attacks are so frequent that the evidence is overwhelming.

These days, aim a camera at the sky—and sooner or later, a drone will show up.

100 drones a day attack Kherson civilians

For comparison, mines and explosives wounded 215 and killed 22 during the same period in the Kherson Oblast.

Explore further

Russian drones hunt civilians, terrorize Kherson with “human safari”

UN confirms deliberate war crimes

The UN has now concluded that attacks like this were part of a policy designed to spread terror and confirmed that the practice is recognized as a war crime by international law, as the Russian pilots on the other side of the Dnipro River can see the target and intentionally kill civilians.

“The attacks followed a regular pattern and the same modus operandi, demonstrating that they were planned, directed, and organized. There is no information suggesting that Russian military and civilian authorities have taken any steps to prevent or stop the commission of the crimes,” the researchers conclude.

After months of targeting coastal areas, attacks now focus on the city center and residential areas considered the safest.

Russians master the deadly “double tap”

On May 3, an FPV drone hit a parking lot by the city’s main shopping center, killing one civilian and injuring three. On May 4, more drones attacked downtown, setting civilian vehicles on fire. Meanwhile, artillery and drone assaults on coastal neighborhoods also intensified, said Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, spokesperson for the Kherson Military Administration, in an interview.

“Each week, the Russian military launches guided aerial bomb strikes, followed by artillery shelling—the so-called ‘double tap,'” he said. “Civilian casualties are mounting.”

Due to “double-tap,” a move that Russians have mastered in Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine, the ambulances cannot pick up the dead.

In April, a drone hit the hospital ER, damaging a hearse with the body of another Russian drone victim, injuring two funeral agency workers.

March 27: when “Armageddon” became daily reality

27 March 2025, is known as “Armageddon”: as the White House proclaimed “energy infrastructure ceasefire,” an unprecedented combined attack hit Kherson, with 37 artillery strikes and dozens of drones killing two and wounding six civilians, and killing several dogs at an animal shelter, in three hours.

More on that dreadful day

“First they shell, then they hunt”: Russia’s savage new civilian terror strategy debuts in Kherson

Later, Armageddon became a daily reality.

First, drones arrive to patrol the skies. Then, a major attack starts either with artillery, shaking the city with a non-stop series of outgoing booms, followed by thin, long whistles, turning into crashing sounds of explosions, or with the aerial guided bomb pulverizing buildings and blocks.

Every five minutes, explosions rock the streets. Shells often hit the power infrastructure, and the electricity goes off.

Life in a city under siege

The city plunges into chaos. Streets and squares remind battle scenes, with cars in flames, power lines torn from the poles blowing in the wind, plumes of black smoke rushing over the sky.

The stench of burned rubber tickles the throat. Drones buzz low and hit public buses and taxis. At the parking lots and sidewalks, drones circle over the injured and dead, crouched in pools of blood.

It is not unusual to discover body parts at the scene. Hiding from the drones becomes easier in summer, with trees providing shelter.

At night, Kherson listens to the louder buzzing sounds of Shahed drones, as well as tanks, mortars, machine guns, and Kalashnikovs fire. Russians are only a few miles away and they try—and fail—to cross the Dnipro River in the dark.

Residents move to the hallways to shelter, but the attacks are so frequent that most only do it if the walls shake and the remaining glass jiggles. Not much glass is left in the windows as it fell out from shock waves and shrapnel pieces. Most windows are covered with plywood.

Walking or driving to a bomb shelter is virtually impossible, as after 9 pm curfew prohibits being outside.

Khersonians stop being outside much earlier. The city is eerily empty, with broken billboards creaking and banging against the walls. Packs of wild dogs roam the streets and are dangerous as they lick blood from the asphalt after the bodies are removed. They attack pedestrians and bicyclists.

In the morning, Armageddon starts all over as FPV drones are flying by the windows, whizzing by, and dropping grenades on any cars driving by.

Russia’s deadly “creativity”

Russian drones now drop anti-personnel landmines on civilians in Kherson

Even gardeners need bulletproof vests

Kherson City Park crews trimming roses and mowing lawns in the Freedom Square, wearing bulletproof vests, came under attack on the last week of April.

Olga Chupikova, the head of the crew, whose son was recently killed in combat, survived the attack as she was inside.

She said, “It was scary. Three cars burned down. Four colleagues were injured.”

While in April people were still outside planting tomatoes and pumpkins on top of temporary shelters and watering flowerbeds by the ruins, by May, the Kherson military administration recommended staying inside due to the increase in drone attacks.

The challenge of reporting from the frontline

Reporting from Kherson is challenging. A special access is needed, and journalists’ protective gear becomes a bait for the Russian drone pilots.

Working without a bulletproof vest and helmet is a serious risk. In colder weather, a hoodie jacket helps, but as temperatures rise, it becomes difficult. Nevertheless, the coverage of this new reality—and the future of modern warfare—is critically important.

Hi, I’m Zarina, a frontline reporter for Euromaidan Press and the author of this piece. We aim to shed light on some of the world’s most important yet underreported stories. Help us make more articles like this by becoming a Euromaidan Press patron.

Whoever becomes the next Pope will inherit not just the leadership of the Catholic Church but a remarkably sophisticated approach to technology — one that in many ways outpaces governments worldwide. While Silicon Valley preaches Artificial Intelligence as a quasi-religious force capable of saving humanity, the Vatican has been developing theological arguments to push back against this narrative.

In the hours after Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, I went, like thousands of others in Rome, straight to St Peter's Square to witness the city in mourning as the basilica's somber bell tolled. 

Just three days before, on Good Friday, worshippers in the eternal city proceeded, by candlelight, through the ruins of the Colosseum, as some of the Pope's final meditations were read to them. "When technology tempts us to feel all powerful, remind us," the leader of the service called out. "We are clay in your hands," the crowd responded in unison.

As our world becomes ever more governed by tech, the Pope's meditations are a reminder of our flawed, common humanity. We have built, he warned, "a world of calculation and algorithms, of cold logic and implacable interests." These turned out to be his last public words on technology. Right until the end, he called on his followers to think hard about how we're being captured by the technology around us. "How I would like for us to look less at screens and look each other in the eyes more!" 

Faith vs. the new religion 

Unlike politicians who often struggle to grasp AI's technical complexity, the Vatican has leveraged its centuries of experience with faith, symbols, and power to recognize AI for what it increasingly represents: not just a tool, but a competing belief system with its own prophets, promises of salvation, and demands for devotion.

In February 2020, the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life published the Rome Call for AI ethics, arguing that "AI systems must be conceived, designed and implemented to serve and protect human beings and the environment in which they live." And in January of this year, the Vatican released a document called Antiqua et Nova – one of its most comprehensive statements to date on AI – that warned we're in danger of worshipping AI as a God, or as an idol.

Our investigation into Silicon Valley's cult-like movement 

I first became interested in the Vatican's perspective on AI while working on our Audible podcast series "Captured" with Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie. In our year-long investigation, we discovered how Silicon Valley's AI pioneers have adopted quasi-religious language to describe their products and ambitions — with some tech leaders explicitly positioning themselves as prophets creating a new god.

In our reporting, we documented tech leaders like Bryan Johnson speaking literally about "creating God in the form of superintelligence," billionaire investors discussing how to "live forever" through AI, and founders talking about building all-knowing, all-powerful machines that will free us from suffering and propel us into utopia. One founder told us their goal was to install "all human knowledge into every human" through brain-computer interfaces — in other words, make us all omniscient.

Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, whom I spoke with recently, told me she had warned Pope Francis about the dangers of algorithms designed to promote lies and disinformation. "Francis understood the impact of lies," she said. She explained to the Pope how Facebook had destroyed the political landscape in the Philippines, where the platform’s engagement algorithms allowed disinformation to spread like wildfire. "I said — 'this is literally an incentive structure that is rewarding lies.'"

According to Ressa, AI evangelists in Silicon Valley are acquiring "the power of gods without the wisdom of God." It is power, she said, "that is in the hands of men whose arrogance prevents them from seeing the impact of rolling out technology that's not safe for their kids."

The battle for humanity's future 

The Vatican has always understood how to use technology, engineering and spectacle to harness devotion and wield power — you only have to walk into St Peter’s Basilica to understand that. I spoke to a Vatican priest, on his way to Rome to pay his respects to the Pope. He told me why the Vatican understands the growing power of artificial intelligence so well. "We know perfectly well," he said, "that certain structures can become divinities. In the end, technology should be a tool for living — it should not be the end of man."

A version of this story was published in this week’s Coda Currents newsletter. Sign up here.

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