Ukraine's new defence minister vows data-driven overhaul of military

By Max Hunder

KYIV, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Ukraine's new defence minister promised a sweeping, data-driven overhaul of Europe's largest military to reward commanders achieving results on the battlefield and give Ukrainian forces the upper hand against Russia's bigger and better-equipped army.

Mykhailo Fedorov - previously the digitalisation minister - took up his new post last week, tasked by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy with driving innovation and strengthening Ukraine's defence of its frontline and its skies.

In remarks to reporters over the weekend, cleared for release on Tuesday, Fedorov said he would start by overhauling the vast ministry's management: "If people don't demonstrate measurable results, they can't remain in the system."

Fedorov said his team had assembled "high-quality data" on where the ministry was spending money and where savings could be made as he seeks to address a large budget gap.

"It is very important that we have begun to calculate everything systematically," he said, emphasising the importance of "the mathematics of war."

Fedorov said his ministry would soon launch a mission control system for drone flights, which would increase the data available about crews' performance and effectiveness. A similar system would be developed for artillery crews.

"We need to see the full picture to simplify and speed up management decision-making," Fedorov said, adding that his aim was to increase Russia's losses on the battlefield until they became unsustainable.

AI MODEL TRAINING

Fedorov said Ukraine will establish a system allowing its allies to train their artificial intelligence military models on Kyiv's valuable combat data collected throughout the nearly four-year war with Russia.

On Tuesday, Fedorov said on social media that Ukraine was launching a project with Palantir called "Dataroom" to develop AI based on combat data to help intercept Russian drones.

Since Russia's invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has gathered extensive battlefield information, including systematically logged combat statistics and millions of hours of drone footage captured from above.

Such data is important for training AI models, which require large volumes of real-world information to identify patterns and predict how people or objects might act. Fedorov previously described Kyiv's wartime data trove as one of its "cards" in negotiations with other nations.

Outlining his plans for the wartime defence ministry after his appointment, he said he wanted to "more actively" integrate allies into projects.

He said his team was receiving advice from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and RAND in the U.S., as well as Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

MAVIC REPLACEMENT

Fedorov also said Ukraine would test its home-grown replacement for China's DJI Mavic drone this month, which is widely used for aerial reconnaissance on the front lines by both sides. He did not disclose the manufacturer.

Ukraine has previously raised concerns about reliance on Beijing for drones and components, given China's deepening diplomatic ties with Russia.

"We will have our own Mavic analogue: the same camera, but with a longer flight range," Fedorov said.