Alexus Grynkewich, a US Air Force general who serves as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, is urging more weapons makers to test their military equipment on the battlefield in Ukraine as the war continues to rage.
“Those few that have tried it have either learned a lot, or they’ve decided to go home because they can’t compete in that environment. But that is going to be the environment that we face,” Grynkewich said last week while speaking virtually to an industry group in Washington, according to Defense One.
Brave1, a Ukrainian government-backed tech firm, recently launched a program for foreign defense contractors to apply to test weapons technology on the battlefield and has received dozens of applications. Since the start of the proxy war, Ukrainian officials have urged Western arms makers to send weapons into the war by framing it as an opportunity to test the equipment against a near-peer competitor.
Grynkewich said that any companies looking to sell weapons to NATO countries should attend the upcoming Defense Tech Valley conference in Ukraine, which is put on by Brave 1 and will be held on September 16-17.
“They’re bringing in dozens and dozens of companies from across Europe who have co-production or co-licensing agreements and partnerships with the Ukrainians. It’s an incredible opportunity to see what the modern battlefield looks like today, what it might look like tomorrow, and what we might need in the future,” the commander said.
While President Trump has made a push for a peace deal in Ukraine, chances for an agreement seem slim, and his administration is also taking steps to pour more weapons into Ukraine, including the new NATO initiative that provides money from European countries to purchase US weapons for Ukraine, known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative.
