Ukraine to Let Troops Buy Weapons With Points for Evacuating Comrades

Ukrainian soldiers will soon be able to purchase weapons from an online “Amazon”-style marketplace using points earned for evacuating wounded comrades from the battlefield with ground robots, a top government official told Business Insider on Wednesday.

Mykhailo Fedorov, the first deputy prime minister of Ukraine and its minister of digital transformation, said that the new incentive will begin within a month and fall under guidance from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“We are already tracking and incentivizing logistics,” Fedorov said in an interview, speaking through a translator and confirming the future rollout of the new points feature.

Earlier in the war, Ukraine launched the Brave1 Market, a first-of-its-kind program that awards “ePoints” to soldiers for killing Russian troops or destroying their equipment and verifying the successful hit by uploading drone footage to a military network.

The Ukrainian soldiers can use the reward points to buy drones, robots, electronic warfare devices, and other defense technology and systems from an online marketplace. Each Russian target has its own value; killing a soldier might be worth a dozen points while destroying a tank may be worth as many as 40. Wounding or damaging a target yields fewer points.

The portal allows military units to order directly from manufacturers, skirting government-run supply chains and streamlining the overall procurement process. Weaponry can be delivered straight to the front lines in a matter of days.

Last week, Zelenskyy said Ukraine should include soldier evacuation by robot as a way for troops to earn points. “I think this is fair because saving a person’s life, our person’s life, is a priority.”

Fedorov, who spearheads Ukrainian defense innovation, said that a soldier who saves their comrade using the evacuation robots will earn “10 times more points” than if they were to kill a Russian.

‘A believer’ in robots

Uncrewed ground vehicles have emerged as valuable tools for the Ukrainian military because of their many battlefield functions — some of which would otherwise be tremendously dangerous tasks if performed by humans.

These remotely controlled robots can carry out logistics and combat missions, including evacuating wounded soldiers, delivering ammunition to the front lines, carrying weapons, launching assaults on Russian positions, placing mines, and even exploding next to enemy armored vehicles.

“We are truly a believer in UGVs,” Fedorov said, sharing that more and more Ukrainian brigades are opting to use the robots for logistics missions. Some units are using them to move tens of thousands of tons of cargo and supplies.

Fedorov said there are some “high-profile cases” of the UGVs helping to evacuate soldiers, and many other instances that are less public. The new incentives on the Brave1 Market could significantly increase the frequency of this particular mission for the robots.

Casualty evacuation is particularly challenging in Ukraine, given the difficulties of bringing wounded soldiers back from vulnerable spots near the front line, US military veterans who have fought there previously told Business Insider.

The prevalence of drones for surveillance and strikes makes it dangerous for the wounded and medical personnel to carry out an evacuation, even at night under the cover of darkness.

UGVs lower the risk to medical crews, presenting a less valuable target, but Ukrainian soldiers have said that the ground robots have issues as well at times. A severed connection, for instance, could leave a wounded soldier exposed and vulnerable.

Russia also fields UGVs, one tool in an ever-expanding inventory of uncrewed systems. Kyiv and Moscow also operate aerial and naval drones, and both sides continue to make modifications to their uncrewed weapons to make them harder to stop, such as by leaning more on jamming-resistant fiber-optic cables instead of radio frequency connections.

‘Living its own life’

The Brave1 Market catalog is extensive, and soldiers can use it to buy all sorts of military equipment, from drones, ground robots, and guns to electronic warfare devices, cameras, batteries, engines, and satellite communication systems.

Units from across Ukraine’s armed forces compete, and a leaderboard tracks the accumulation of points. “Birds of Madyar,” a prominent drone brigade, topped the Brave1 Market charts last month.

Fedorov calls it the “Amazon for war” because soldiers can purchase hardware directly from manufacturers in just a few clicks; when they exchange their “ePoints,” the Ukrainian government foots the bill.

In just three months, Ukrainian units have already procured some 6 billion hryvnias ($142 million) worth of equipment, Fedorov said, adding that the Brave1 Market plays a crucial role by showcasing defense products for quick purchase rather than forcing soldiers to rely on a slower-moving, centralized, government-led procurement process.

The development of the marketplace highlights Ukraine’s efforts to accelerate the delivery of arms and other military equipment to the front lines through more grassroots-level initiatives. Crowdfunding, for instance, has been a way for the government to quickly raise funds that are then used to purchase weapons.

However, the marketplace also amplifies some long-standing concerns about drone warfare — that the ability to kill an enemy remotely and share the footage dehumanizes conflict.

For Ukraine, Brave1 Market is yet another example of government innovation brought on by the full-scale invasion.

Fedorov said the platform allows manufacturers to list new technology that the government — or military units — might not have known about otherwise. Tens of thousands of drones alone have already been ordered through the platform.

“It’s kind of living its own life,” he said. “So in a network-centric war, in hindsight, this feels like a very revolutionary — yet logical — step.”