Ukrainian defense tech CEO Yaroslav Azhnyuk delivered a stark warning to Western allies at Thursday’s defense cooperation forum in Lviv: hearing wake-up calls about Russian threats isn’t the same as waking up.
Speaking at the “Joint Ventures, Joint Defence” forum in Lviv, Azhnyuk challenged fundamental Western assumptions about Ukrainian innovation and military preparedness that could leave NATO vulnerable to the same threats now devastating Ukrainian forces.
Western armies sleep through drone revolution
“We live in many lies that we take for granted,” Azhnyuk told the defense technology audience. One of the most dangerous delusions: Western armies planning for future readiness while, if not ignoring current battlefield realities, then at least not taking them as seriously as they should.
According to Azhnyuk, 60-70% of Ukrainian casualties now come from FPV drones, yet virtually no EU or NATO units train with this battlefield-dominant technology.
“How many units in Western armies have units that have been trained to use them?” Azhnyuk asked rhetorically. “None at all or such a tiny percentage that we need a microscope to see it?”
Azhnyuk said that instead of getting prepared now, Western armies set readiness targets for 2027, 2029, or even 2031 for technology that’s being used in the battlefields today and will be redundant in a couple of years.
Azhnyuk speaks from direct experience. His companies—thermal camera manufacturer Odd Systems and AI firm TheFourthLaw.ai—develop technologies Western militaries are still planning to adopt.
Odd Systems produces Kurbas cameras, currently the world’s best 256-pixel thermal imaging systems for mass-manufactured FPV drones—technology born from battlefield necessity, not laboratory planning.
Ukraine isn’t the testing ground—Russia should be
Azhnyuk challenged another Western assumption: Ukraine is a “test ground” for defense technology.
“Russia should be that test field!” he declared, arguing that authoritarian threats from Russia and China will continue expanding without fundamental changes in Western strategic thinking, which is very cautious and slow to adapt to new realities.
The CEO also dismissed claims that Ukrainian innovations represent “low-tech” solutions with a pointed analogy: “An FPV drone is like a burger—you can assemble it in your kitchen, just like you can make a hamburger in your kitchen. Still, your kitchen-made hamburger isn’t McDonald’s.”
But that doesn’t mean the homemade version lacks the same components, Azhnyuk explained. The difference lies merely in packaging and marketing, not technological sophistication.
He noted that Ukrainian innovations use the same components and assembly methods as Western systems.
The gap isn’t in innovation but in scale and battlefield validation.
Market reality vs production hype
The latter reveals harsh realities: while there are hundreds, if not hundreds, of FPV drone producers operating globally, when asked, the frontline drone operators consistently identify only 4-5 reliable producers despite the theoretically crowded market.
Azhnyuk noted that the fact that only a handful of producers make reliable equipment tells us yet again about the differences between theory and praxis, between the laid-back attitude of many Western companies and the we-needed-it-yesterday feverish attitude of the Ukrainian producers, who work in a tight feedback loop with the men and women on the front.
Beyond military: Strategic blindness everywhere
Azhnyuk’s critique extended beyond military preparedness to broader Western strategic thinking. He cited European data protection claims while companies rely on Google Cloud services that may not comply with European laws.
He warned of upcoming election cycles that would bring “Russian-influenced and financed radical parties” to power across the West while military capability gaps persist.
The uncomfortable truth
The “Joint Ventures, Joint Defence” forum, organized by Tech Force in UA, brought together governments, global defense companies, and technology innovators to explore scaling joint defense production partnerships with Ukraine. The event featured booths from seven partner countries seeking drone and high-tech cooperation opportunities.
But Azhnyuk’s message cut deeper than partnership mechanics. Europeans constantly speak of various crises as “wake-up calls,” he observed, but there’s a critical difference: “Hearing a wake-up call is not the same as waking up.”