“If we leave Ukraine, what message do we send to Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and anyone else with an army and ambition?”
Steven Moore talking to Ukrainian soldiers.
Interview with Steven Moore about the latest drone innovations on the front, the real costs of defense, US equipment that work on the battlefield, and what is at stake globally. Part 1.
Konstantin Riffler:
Steven Moore, you have done something extraordinary. A few days after the start of Russia´s invasion of Ukraine, you started the Ukraine Freedom Project. This project supports Ukrainians on the ground, including soldiers and civilians, through donations and public awareness campaigns. You have drawn attention to the situation, including in front of Congress and through media engagement. You also draw a lot of attention to the last big budget package by the US Congress. Please tell me more about why you started this project and how it has evolved over the last two-plus years.
Steven Moore:
I lived in Ukraine in 2018 and 2019 and loved it. Eventually, I got a job with a US AI firm with about 500 Ukrainian employees, and I left on the last day of January 2022. After two and a half years in this startup, I was burned out and struggled to decide if I wanted to spend the winter skiing in the Alps or the Rockies. While I was trying to figure that out, my friends in Ukraine started calling me, telling me they were bombed in Kyiv. I remembered the two years I spent in Iraq as a civilian and thought that skiing was not the right choice at this very moment in time.
I hopped on a plane, landed in Bucharest, drove to the Ukrainian border, and tried to help my friends get out of hotspots like Kyiv and Kharkiv. And after about three weeks, all my friends who wanted to be safe were safe. At the same time, I noticed that the international community was not responding adequately at the start of the war. A friend of a friend called me from a clinic outside Kyiv, saying they were taking in war-wounded patients and asking me if I could help with medical supplies.
I asked my friend: “Where is the Red Cross?” and he asked me: “Who?”
At first, I didn´t want to go to the front. I heard it was rough there. I asked my friend: Where is the Red Cross? and he asked me: Who? The International Committee of the Red Cross or other NGOs have not been active there yet. So, I bought about 6,000 USD worth of medical supplies and took them to the front. Some folks in Kharkiv needed food, and there was a rush to get body armor on people. So, we got several thousand pieces of body armor and started trying to solve those humanitarian problems.
At some point, I recognized I was one of the few people in the world who had been to the Ukrainian front and the floor of the House of Representatives. So, I started educating my former colleagues on Capitol Hill about what I was seeing firsthand in Ukraine, providing firsthand, fact-based, data-driven information. That has been a really good pushback against the massive volumes of Russian propaganda that is influencing Americans.
Living there and speaking to many different people in the military, defense, economic, and political spheres gives you a clear picture of the dynamics and changing sentiments in Ukraine. How has the atmosphere over the last 12 months changed for Ukrainians you speak to?
Good question. I will give you a big-picture answer. This has much to do with the aid bill, which took six months to pass Congress. What a lot of people don´t know is that it took about four months for the administration to get the weapons to Ukraine. Some members of Congress with whom I am friends with called me and asked if the weapons were getting to the front. I said: I don`t know; let me check with my friends at the front. I did an in-depth survey in the Ukraine and found out they did not make it to the front. It took until August, after the April aid bill passed, for a substantial amount of weapons and ammunition to get where it needed to go.
It took until August, after the April aid bill passed, for a substantial amount of weapons and ammunition to get where it needed to go.
Ten months of not having these weapons from the US was discouraging to the Ukrainians. So their enthusiasm waned, but it is back now with the Kursk incursion and the weapons they got. The amazing innovations Ukrainians have made in warfare are significant. 155-millimeter shells were the bread and butter in this war, not so different from World War I. Which side got more of these shells and could inflict more casualties and kill more on the other side of the front, was the central question? Simple maths from 1917.
Warfare changed dramatically then because Ukrainians were deprived of the 155-millimeter shells they needed to continue this war in this fashion. Ukrainians are super innovative. What I like about Ukrainians is what I like about Americans: They are extremely courageous, fighting for their freedom. They are innovative, hardworking, and entrepreneurial. That came through when deprived of 155-millimeter shells, and they began making FPV drones ( First-Person View Drones). These drones have goggles, cameras, and a controller resembling gaming controllers. Kamikaze drones carry payloads between 500 grams and 5 kilos, depending on the device. And they kill Russian troops with it. These drones are super effective, causing 90% of battlefield injuries in Chasiv Yar on both sides. These innovations have been a real booster.
Sadly, there is no mechanism for the US or other Western nations to take advantage of the incredible innovations made by Ukrainians. Even after spending $100 billion, I am not confident that these technological advances are getting back to benefiting US warfighters.
There are up to 300 firms in Ukraine producing drones, and up to 100% of the drones used on the front are made within Ukraine. Some of them are the most innovative companies producing (semi-)automated drones with AI and swarm capabilities. That is rather amazing.
Yes, that is very true. I don´t even know where to start here. Let me tell you about my amazing friend Victor. He used to be a pastor and is now a drone pilot at the front. We discussed the drone war recently. There is a drone escalation war. Let me give you an example: The Russians just came up with fixed-wing drones used for observation to detect artillery fire, costing around 25,000 USD, some up to 100,000 USD.
It is really fun at parties but doesn't work well in combat against Russians because it is essentially a large firecracker.
In contrast, Ukrainian FPV drones cost about 500 USD each. And they have been effective in taking out Russian observation drones. The Russians responded using an observation camera on the front and an AI-enabled camera on the rear of these drones that recognizes kamikaze drones. When they detect one, they just accelerate. These drones can go up to 120 kilometers per hour, but kamikaze drones can only sustain the same speed for about seven seconds due to battery drain. So, Ukraine´s defense companies and innovators started the next phase in this innovation cycle. This cycle here in Ukraine is measured in days and battlefield-tested.
On the other hand, we have seen that US kamikaze drones here are ineffective on the battlefield, like the Switchblade 300. Friends in Kherson who have used it say it is really fun at parties but don´t work well in combat against Russians because it is essentially a large firecracker.
How much does the US kamikaze drone cost?
It ranges from 57,000 to 86,000 USD. And it is not as effective as the Ukrainian 500 to 600 USD kamikaze FPV drone. We have also heard about other drone manufacturers in the US. Our drones do not work well in Ukraine, in part because American defense technology was created to combat men in caves in Afghanistan, not adversaries with sophisticated electronic warfare equipment, which the Russians do have.
It [the US kamikaze drone] ranges from 57,000 to 86,000 USD. And it is not as effective as the Ukrainian 500 to 600 USD kamikaze FPV drone.
Drone innovation and warfare are advancing daily. We are acquainted with some folks in Ukraine who call themselves the Skunk Works, similar to an organization in the US Military that always thinks of the next step. This Ukrainian nonprofit has been active since 2014. They stopped making FPV drones because everyone else is doing it and are now trying to find the next big thing, so they are focusing on land drones and anti-drone jamming. And that is a holy grail.
I did a deep dive and interviewed about 40 people involved in drone warfare, drone manufacturing, members of parliament, drone experts and pilots, and venture capitalists. One statistic that stood out is that there are about 750 defense tech companies in Ukraine, 300 of which are drone companies. There are also about 150 AI companies, 150 anti-drone companies, 150 land drone companies, and a few others. A venture capitalist I spoke with estimated that if you gathered 150 million USD, these companies could develop a minimum viable product. In comparison, the US Department of Defense spends 148 billion USD annually on R&D (2024). Ukraine is a test bed for battlefield technology that has proven effective. And it is cheap to build because it is an inexpensive place to manufacture, requiring only a fraction of the US Department of Defense budget to develop a minimum viable product for all these companies. So, there is a missed opportunity here or an opportunity that needs to be taken advantage of. If a drone costs 500 USD and you need a million drones, that totals just half a billion dollars.
What are Europe´s challenges in this global war?
The message I am trying to get out to national security types is that we are in a global war right now. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are working together, and the United States and Europe are not ready for the war we are in. Returning to the 155-millimeter shells we spoke about earlier, costs when manufactured in the United States are 3,000 USD; in Europe, it is almost three times as much at 8500 USD. Together, the United States and Europe could produce around 3.5 million shells. We are outpriced and out-manufactured by the Russian war machine. I hope that European and American NATO air superiority will be a force to be reckoned with and resolve many of the problems associated with the ground war, but if we [NATO states on European ground] get into a ground war, we are not ready.
NATO intelligence estimates indicate that Russia manufactures approximately 250,000 artillery munitions monthly, totaling around 3 million annually. Today, the combined capacity of the US and Europe for Kyiv is approximately 1.2 million shells annually. The US military aims to manufacture 100,000 rounds of artillery per month by the end of 2025, less than 50% of the Russian monthly production.
About Steven Moore
Steven Moore is a former chief of staff in the US House of Representatives who has worked in Congo, Iraq, and Indonesia. His NGO, the Ukraine Freedom Project (UFP), through talks with more than 100 Congressional members, was essential - and credited by media such asCNN, Financial Times, and Huff Post - in creating the environment for Republican support of the 62 billion USD aid bill to Ukraine. Moore lives in Ukraine, visits the front, and speaks to politicians, defense experts, drone pilots, and defense CEOs in the country regularly. Since March of 2022, UFP has delivered some 250 tons of food to areas impacted by the war, supplied dozens of hospitals with medical supplies, helped put thousands of pieces of body armor on Ukrainians and delivered Starlinks, drones, generators, and other aid to areas near the front. For his influence in the US and the Ukraine, the Russian government put him on its hit list of foreign combatants.
For more insights from the front, follow Steven Moore at: https://stevenmoore.substack.com/ or support the Ukraine Freedom Project: https://ukrainefreedomproject.org
