The Defence Builder Accelerator will look for R&D solutions that improve products already used at the front, alongside new platforms, its Director Yana Shkvarovska said at a conference hosted by the German-Ukrainian Chamber of Industry and Commerce (AHK Ukraine). Yana Shkvarovska spoke on the panel "From frontline need to fielded capability: how can Europe transfer innovation into operational use much faster", moderated by Tobias Kohler, CEO of Rödl & Partner. The other speakers were Victor Chuikovskyi (RISE Technologies Ukraine) and Leopold Posch, Director of Tytan Technologies.

There are around 2,000 defence-tech startups in Ukraine, Shkvarovska said, and the market is not oversaturated. What has changed is that there is now room to improve what is already flying rather than to add another platform beside it. If a solution helps an existing drone survive enemy electronic warfare, she said, it should be integrated into that drone — and those are the capabilities the accelerator is looking for in the teams it selects.

"This is not the time to compete. It is the time to cooperate — to talk about how we strengthen what already exists, instead of competing with Ukrainian manufacturers. We have one shared task here," Shkvarovska said.

She also described how the accelerator sets its priorities. Working with the military does not begin with a technical specification handed over by a unit, she said: the programme starts with conversations in units about which gaps are real on specific parts of the front and how the situation has changed since the previous round. Those conversations shape the programme's priorities and the selection criteria, so teams enter acceleration with a problem the end user has already confirmed.

Addressing European companies, Shkvarovska said a partner not working in Ukraine is roughly five years behind modern warfare. Technology at the front changes in months, and companies that spend time in Ukraine — with manufacturers, units and institutions here — plan from the current situation rather than from last year's picture. That presence, she added, is usually what turns an agreement into joint work.