Ukrainian military mobile applications: how to recognize enemies and direct drones using a phone

After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a boom in inventions and defense software began. Thus, game consoles and mobile phones have become weapons, reports Currently,.

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In May 2023, the largest media outlets that review computer games and technologies wrote about the development of Ukrainian volunteers called “Sabre”. This is an automatic turret. With its help, you can fire a machine gun remotely - from a distance of five hundred meters. But it was not the automatic machine gun itself that interested gaming journalists (it was developed back in 2014), but its control panel. It was the StreamDeck portable gaming console.

The SteamDeck game console is a mini-computer running an open source Linux operating system. Depending on the model, it costs from $400 to $800, while developing from scratch and releasing a control panel for such turrets costs tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Since the beginning of the war, Ukrainians have adapted a variety of devices and technologies for military needs, developed dozens of applications.

TyHto

In the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion, Ukrainians began to enroll en masse in the territorial defense forces and set up checkpoints. The lack of overall coordination led to chaos on the roads: any person with a weapon or any cargo was detained and carefully searched. At some point, even Alexey Arestovich, at that time a freelance adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, had to make an appeal: “There are numerous signals that local self-defense has practically paralyzed traffic on the roads. This is bad. When military and humanitarian aid arrives, we cannot transfer it to the central, eastern and southern regions in time, because, as they say, local self-defense is too zealous. Dear friends, let's clean up the roads! In your zeal, you have created a problem at the state level. The Office of the President is forced to intervene.”

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The answer was the TyHto app. It was taken just a few weeks after the full-scale invasion of the Russian army. The application allows territorial defense forces and police to quickly check a suspicious person. It examines the digital footprint and searches public registers and lists.

Here's what information you can check thanks to the application in a minute, reports MC:

• whether the passport is listed as lost or invalid;
• whether the person is wanted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the SBU;
• whether the person is wanted;
• whether the person is on the terrorist register or DRG;
• whether NSDC sanctions have been imposed on him;
• whether the person is in the “Peacemaker” database.

An important point: the application does not contain, store or transmit personal data of persons. Here only public data from open registries.

Chatbots and ePPO

The Ukrainian authorities have launched dozens of specialized chatbots on Telegram so that users can report the movement of the enemy, request the help of volunteers, or find loved ones who have lost contact due to the evacuation.

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In October 2022, the day after the explosion on the Crimean bridge, Russia launched an attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Rocket strikes were carried out from the air and sea from the waters of the Azov, Black and Caspian Seas, as well as with the help of kamikaze drones.

The most difficult targets for air defense forces are low-flying cruise missiles and drones. Due to the peculiarities of the relief and the curvature of the earth, they are difficult to spot at a great distance. And the later they are discovered, the less time the air defense fighters will have to destroy them.

Two days after the attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure began – on October 12 – volunteers from Odessa released the “ePPO” application.

With its help, anyone can transmit information about low-flying drones, missiles, or notify the Ukrainian air defense forces about planes and helicopters. Such popular crowdsourced air defense. A week and a half later, on October 22, with the help of this application it was possible to shoot down a Russian Caliber missile for the first time.

All you have to do is point your smartphone at a flying target in the sky, select the type of target and press the huge red button. Then all the information goes to a single center, which verifies the targets, and if the information is confirmed, then the air defense forces destroy the threat. First, you will have to go through authorization through the “Diya” service and make sure there are no errors by clicking the “Test” button.

“We did the EPPO in constant consultation with real specialists of our air defense, who now, from my point of view, are the best in the world in terms of experience and profession. From the very beginning, the development was coordinated with the command of OK “Yug” and senior officers of the Air Force PPK “Yug,” the developers emphasized.

mine free

The international organization GlobSec has recognized Ukraine as the most mined territory in the world. Unexploded ordnance, anti-tank and anti-personnel barriers occupy up to 30% of the country's area - about 174 thousand square kilometers. Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal named the figure at 250 thousand square kilometers, which is already larger than the area of ​​Romania or Great Britain.

Unexploded ordnance and rockets, anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, booby traps - everything poses a mortal danger to the civilian population. Only since the beginning of a full-scale war in Ukraine, anti-personnel mines have killed 750 people, every eighth victim is a child.

The MineFree application contains a map with marks of potentially dangerous places, the user can leave his mark and warn the DSNS, that is, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. If a person approaches a potentially dangerous area, the smartphone sends a notification, a sound, and a vibration signal. The application helps save lives, but it cannot solve the problem of demining. Demining Ukraine could take decades and cost tens of billions of dollars.

System "Nettle"

This is a map application created by volunteers to combine reconnaissance, control and fire destruction into a single system. In simple words: a scout uses a regular Android tablet to map targets, and the nearest free artillery “accepts the order” and strikes at the specified geolocation.

Previously, the coordinates of the target were transmitted by radio. The gunners sat down at the table, took a ruler, a planchette, a calculator and counted for 15–20 minutes. “Now there is no need to do the calculation manually, and this has significantly accelerated the execution of the combat mission,” said Sergey Zgurets, director of the information and consulting company Defense Express.

“After February 24, thousands of tablets with Nettles began to go to the front,” volunteer and co-founder of the SOS Army Oleksiy Savchenko shared information. “We did, slept, woke up and did again.”

Another application developed by volunteers, GIS Arta, works on a similar principle. The media nicknamed this software “Uber for artillery.” It was these applications that helped the Ukrainian Armed Forces stop the attempt of Russian troops to cross the Seversky Donets River in May 2022. Then the Russians lost about eighty pieces of equipment and almost five hundred people killed.

Delta

In February 2023, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense officially adopted Delta, a situational awareness and battle management system. This is no longer just an application, but a whole complex of programs. “Delta” consists of three parts: “Delta Monitor” is a general map that contains all the information about the location of Ukrainian troops and enemy troops in real time, that is, it turns an ordinary military map into a kind of computer game, adjusted, of course, for military technologies.

Delta Element is a secure messenger for communication and coordination, while Delta Tube is a cross between YouTube and Twitch. This system displays video from all available ground cameras, drone and reconnaissance drone cameras, sensor systems, satellite images, and more. Delta also integrates chatbots, such as “eVorog” or Stop Russian War, the “Nettle” system.

“This is a geospatial system that can fully satisfy the military’s request for information: where is the enemy, where are their forces, what is the command’s plan, how to plan it, how to coordinate it. And all this happens in cyberspace,” explained Ruslan Prilipko, head of the Aerointelligence IT department.

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The full list of military equipment and programs produced by Ukrainian volunteers for the army can be continued for a long time. These include PD, Furia, and Leleka drones, an anti-drone gun, and Delfast and Eleek electric bicycles for the army. This decentralized approach to technology development also has its downsides. First of all, this is a dispersion of resources and a lack of coordination.

In April, the Ukrainian authorities launched a single platform for defense startups Brave1, where anyone who wants to help the state with their developments can submit an idea and receive funding, mentoring, or the technologies necessary for implementation. A similar system - the Defense Innovation Unit - for the introduction of commercial technologies in the military sphere has been operating under the US Department of Defense since 2015.

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