At the end of April, Ukraine announced the setting up of a marketplace for military technology and equipment. Unsurprisingly the new initiative has quickly garnered comparisons with commercial sites like Amazon and eBay.
The new site, Brave1 Market, seems to be an innovative idea which incorporates a number of interesting dynamics and features that the defence industry hasn’t really seen before. This includes a points system for verified destruction of enemy equipment – these points can then be spent in the marketplace. The idea of online marketplaces is already well established and highly popular in Ukraine with popular Ukrainian online marketplaces include Prom.ua, Rozetka.com.ua, and OLX.ua and of course the ubiquitous Chinese sites such as AliExpress.com
The new marketplace was set up by Brave1 which is an organisation set up by the Ukrainian government to bring together innovative companies with ideas and developments that can be used by Ukraine’s armed forces. They coordinate between various individuals, companies and state entities to get new equipment to the Ukrainian military. The Brave1 Market is their latest initiative.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, said “Brave1 Market will become the Amazon for the military — giving units the ability to buy exactly what they need, right when they need it. This will solve the problem of spreading effective innovations faster.” The aim of the site being to get the latest useful kit to units which have a proven track record of being effective and also fostering new capabilities for units.
Much has been made of the site’s ‘gamification of war’, essentially making military operations a competition and this is most evident from the large bar chart on the site’s front page which prominently shows the approximate number of points various drone-operating units have accrued. The chart shows the 10 top performing drone units over the previous month, the 414th Unmanned Strike Aviation Brigade, also known as Magyar’s Birds is well ahead.
The game-like points system is known as ‘Battle Points’ which are accrued when visual evidence of the destruction of Russian troops and equipment is shared through the Ukrainian military’s Delta is a situational awareness and battlefield management system. The points system is dynamic meaning points for various systems can be increase or decreased depending on operational goals but the basic values break down as:
- 6 points for eliminating an enemy soldier
- 20 points for damaging a tank or AFV
- 40 points for destroying a tank or AFV
- Up to 50 points for eliminating a mobile rocket system, depending on its caliber
An example of the value of the points was shared by the Ukrainian government: Magyar’s Birds has amassed over 16,000 points as of April, this is said to be enough for approximately 500 FPV drones, 500 drones equipped for night operations, 100 heavy lift drones, and 40 reconnaissance UAVs.
The Brave1 Market currently features over 1,000 products across a number of primary categories including: aerial drones, ground drones, electronic warfare systems like jammers, components and accessories and software. Unsurprisingly there is both a public catalogue and a ‘closed catalogue’ for equipment which is deemed sensitive and requires users to log in via the Delta system.
In the future Brave1 aims to introduce additional features to the market place that will allow units to browse and submit direct requests to manufacturers aiming to speed up the procurement processes. Additionally, the platform will also serve as a verified fundraising tool enabling individuals to support units.
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