BRUSSELS — NATO and Ukraine’s defense technology cluster Brave1 have launched a joint innovation program to fund defense companies, with an initial focus on counter-drone systems designed to counter Russian FPV and Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicles, the alliance announced Tuesday.
The program, described as the first joint innovation grant program between NATO and Ukraine, opened for applications this week and is open to companies from Ukraine and NATO member states. Funding of up to 500 million euros, or approximately 569 million dollars, is available per partnership between one Ukrainian firm and a company from a NATO member state.
Brave1 identified five priority technology areas for the first funding round: active protection systems against FPV drones, affordable counter-Shaehd systems, electromagnetic support for signals intelligence, electromagnetic attack technology against FPVs, and high-altitude platform systems.
The initiative comes as Russia continues to deploy large volumes of unmanned systems against Ukraine in layered waves. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia launched 136 drones, one KH-59 cruise missile, and seven Iskander-M and S-400 ballistic missiles against Ukraine between July 25 and July 26 alone.
Ukrainian defense officials have noted that while Ukraine retains battlefield expertise in drone warfare, scaling countermeasures against the sheer volume of Russian loitering munitions remains a critical challenge. Moscow has increasingly relied on jet-powered Shahed drones for deep strikes inside Ukraine and uses older models as replacements for long-range artillery, according to a representative of Ukrainian company Skyfall.
The program aims to accelerate the translation of battlefield lessons into deployable countermeasures by pairing Ukrainian firms with NATO defense contractors. Both sides hope the partnership will close the gap between prototype development and mass production, a bottleneck that has hindered previous efforts to field new electronic warfare and counter-drone systems at scale.
NATO officials described the program as a model for future defense cooperation with Ukraine outside traditional alliance funding channels, allowing faster deployment of bespoke countermeasures tailored to the current threat environment on the battlefield.
Author: Pulse Of Nations Wire Desk
