Up to ₴100 million for creating “war game-changers”: Fedorov announced three new grant programmes from Brave1

The state defence technology cluster Brave1 will launch three new grant programmes – with significantly larger cheques than before. This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov during the presentation of the government’s action plan. The grants will be available to innovative manufacturers of explosives, autonomous drones, and missiles of various ranges.

The government believes that these three verticals could generate new “game-changers” – breakthrough innovations capable of shifting the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine’s favour. Similar solutions in the past included Ukrainian naval drones (which cleared the Black Sea of the Russian fleet) and multicopters (which swept the frontline of enemy equipment).

According to Fedorov, starting next week Brave1 will begin issuing large grants of up to ₴100 million to Ukrainian explosives manufacturers. He noted that these grants essentially support the creation of innovative turnkey plants.

The second area covers autonomous technologies for drones, enabling them to operate effectively despite enemy electronic warfare and limited manpower. “We must increase the autonomy of drones, because we will never have more people than the Russians,” Fedorov explained. He added that such developments require substantial capital investment, so within this programme the grant cheques will also be much larger than those offered in previous Brave1 rounds.

The third grant programme will cover cruise, ballistic, and short-range missiles, both for air defence and offensive purposes. According to Fedorov, state grant schemes have already supported about 20 products in this area, including some that have already made headlines.

Fedorov noted that funding for the three new grant programmes for the next six months has already been approved by the government and allocated in the state budget.

The Deputy Prime Minister also reminded about the launch of the Test in Ukraine programme, which allows foreign defence technologies to be tested on the battlefield in Ukraine. According to Fedorov, the cluster has already received around 1,000 applications from foreign companies, with 50 of them preparing to bring their technologies for testing in Ukraine.