Learning from Ukraine (II)

Coordinating forces

The first New Age Defence conference was held on Monday in Berlin. It was organised by a number of UxS manufacturers. Neither the exact names of these companies nor the venue were disclosed to the public in advance. The event was supported by the German start-ups Helsing and Quantum Systems, as well as the Ukrainian firm Uforce. Industry partners included Arx Robotics and Stark. Attendance was by invitation only. The timing was deliberately chosen to coincide with the International Berlin Air and Space Show, Berlin’s premier aerospace expo, which opened its doors yesterday, Wednesday. Explaining the objectives of the event, the organisers said it was more than a question of technology to “defend Europe in modern warfare”.[1] The necessary technology was available, and the military knew in any case “what it needs”. Moreover, “the political will” to invest in the arms build-up was growing. Rather, the objective was to overcome was “a gap in coordination”. What was missing, the organisers said, was the moment at which the military frontline, the policymakers and industry “come together, coordinate and move forward jointly”. That moment was what New Age Defence was now providing – and would in the future continue to be tasked with achieving. The event was indeed attended not only by combatants and representatives from UxS firms but also by politicians. Reports put the attendance at around eight-hundred, who overwhelmingly came from Germany, Ukraine and the Baltic states.

Building capacities, not stockpiles

Among the topics discussed at the conference were the profound upheavals in defence production that are soon to happen. Europe’s legacy arms industry has long been characterised by “expensive technology, long production cycles, and systems designed for a form of warfare that no longer exists,” according to the organisers.[2] The conference is based on the view that precisely the UxS sector is structured completely differently. Only “those who are one step ahead of the enemy in all areas” – in “innovation, production, implementation, further development, operational tactics, networking” – will be able to prevail in modern warfare.[3] This approach has major consequences. For instance, “given rapid development cycles and the global race for the most effective technologies,” the traditional approach of stockpiling weapons “makes little sense in the field of unmanned systems”. There is simply too great a risk that, when the equipment is needed in a war, it will already be technologically or tactically obsolete. Discussions at New Age Defence therefore focused in particular on “how the right production capacities can be created and provided” so that armed forces would be “ready to respond at any time” and be capable of producing equipment in line with the latest developments in warfare.

Know-how and industry

As noted at the conference, Ukraine in particular, with its military and its defence companies, now plays a central role in arms innovation. Ukrainian soldiers are testing the latest weapons on the battlefield and stay in close contact with arms producers – primarily Ukrainian but also German. These actors are constantly seeking to adapt the military equipment to the latest needs of troops in the field. We “are learning” a great deal from the Ukrainian side, says Bastian Ernst, CDU Member of the Bundestag and President of the Bundeswehr Reservists’ Association: learning from the combat “experience” they are constantly gaining and “unfortunately paying for so dearly”.[4] The managing director of the New Age Defence forum is Kateryna Mykhalko, a Ukrainian who previously worked for three years in Ukraine at Tech Force, an association that brings together a hundred or so Ukrainian UxS producers. This background gives her has an extensive network of connections in Kyiv. Speakers at the Berlin conference argued that the war offered “loads of opportunities” for building a successful UxS industry in the future.” The opportunities came from “precisely the combination of Ukrainian know-how in the deployment of drones and the resulting continuous optimisation of available technologies”, on the one hand, and the “European experience and capabilities in the field of industrial production,” on the other.[5]

Specialists with frontline experience

The Ukrainian presence at New Age Defence on Monday was correspondingly strong. In addition to Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeyev, representatives of Ukrainian defence companies such as Uforce were in attendance, along with experts from the Ukrainian subsidiaries of German military start-ups. There were also Ukrainian think-tank members, joined by a number of Ukrainian military figures. A segment of the conference was called the ‘Combat Hub’, focusing on “practical demonstrations of modern combat tactics and the use of unmanned systems”. So the participants had, according to the organisers, “the opportunity to speak directly with members of the Ukrainian armed forces who had experience with various unmanned systems on the battlefield”.[6] Specifically, this meant meeting military personnel from the 12th Special Brigade ‘Azov’ of the 1st Corps of the National Guard and from the 17th Brigade of the 2nd Corps ‘Khartiya’ of the National Guard, including specialists in unmanned systems and reconnaissance. Modern battlefield reconnaissance now primarily means, apart from satellites, the deployment of drones. The joint presence of Ukrainian soldiers and German start-up representatives in Berlin gave a glimpse of the day-to-day cooperation between the two sides that has already been practised for several years.

Nazi collaborators as heroes

This cooperation is all the more noteworthy when we consider the political orientation of the Ukrainian units represented at the New Age Defence conference. For instance, the 12th Special Brigade ‘Azov’ of the 1st Corps of the National Guard uses the Wolfsangel symbol, formerly used by the Waffen-SS.[7] As recently reported, the Special Brigade openly venerates Nazi collaborators from the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Azov social media channels highlight the tradition in which they stand. And the Ukrainian government is currently having the remains of OUN leaders transferred to Kyiv, where they are to be honoured in a “Pantheon of Outstanding Ukrainians” (german-foreign-policy.com reported [8]). The 17th Brigade of the 2nd Corps ‘Chartija’, for its part, reportedly celebrated the birthday of OUN leader Stepan Bandera on 1 January 2026. These fighters had, on 14 October 2025, promoted a ‘March of Heroes’ in memory of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), whose militiamen massacred more than 90,000 Poles and thousands of Jews during the Second World War in order to create the conditions for an “ethnically pure” Ukraine. The historical and political views of the Ukrainian soldiers inevitably shape the cooperation with the German UxS start-ups, which regard themselves as the core of the defence industry of the future.

[1], [2] New Age Defence. new-age-defence.berlin.

[3] Jan Schönberg: In Sachen Drohnen bringt höheres Tempo ein Mehr an Sicherheit. drones-magazin.de 09.06.2026.

[4] Johanna Urbancik, Franziska Müller: Drohnen-Gipfel in Berlin: Ukraine-Krieg, Defence-Hightech und Innovationen. de.euronews.com 10.06.2026.

[5] Jan Schönberg: In Sachen Drohnen bringt höheres Tempo ein Mehr an Sicherheit. drones-magazin.de 09.06.2026.

[6] Innovators showcase drones and AI at New Age Defence in Berlin. mezha.net 08.06.2026.

[7] Susann Witt-Stahl: Neues Zeitalter der Kriegführung. junge Welt 08.06.2026.

[8] See: In the pantheon of collaborators.