Frontline troops buying drones on Ukraine’s combat tech marketplace, Brave1 Market, receive their gear within about eight days, Kyiv said on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian defense ministry said the service had reduced the average delivery time for in-stock items from two weeks to eight days.
Brave1 Market works like an Amazon-style platform for drones and counter-drone tech, allowing local manufacturers to list their products online. Military units can purchase these weapons or systems directly and leave reviews and ratings for fellow troops to see.
The online service offers over 4,000 items, ranging from first-person-view attack quadcopters and drone parts to tactical equipment and ammunition.
The defense ministry added on Tuesday that the Brave1 Market filled about 5 billion hryvnias, or $111 million, in drone orders in June alone.
“This is the largest amount of orders in a single month during the entire existence of the eBal program,” it said.
It’s unclear how much of this represents actual funds spent by troops; Brave1 features an ePoints system that allows military units to accrue credits on the marketplace for confirmed kills or destruction of Russian equipment. Other achievements, such as evacuating fellow troops with ground drones, also provide points.
The ministry said in June that Ukrainian troops had ordered over 500,000 drones using their ePoints.
The system was designed specifically to foster direct competition between manufacturers.
“Manufacturers can see how many units use their products, how many e-points it brings monthly, and monitor their effectiveness over time,” Brave1’s press team said in November when it released a new “manufacturer’s cabinet” dashboard that shows stats of each sold product weighed against their competitors’.
Notably, Brave1 is only one of many sources from which troops receive their drones. Ukraine has said it plans to procure about 7 million attack drones this year, which roughly amounts to 19,000 drones per day.
The defense ministry provides many of these drones, sending major shipments of small attack quadcopters to the front lines. Ukraine’s civilian-run crowdfunding organizations also contribute thousands of drones to specific units that are in need or performing well.
