Ukraine Has Digitized Its Fighting Forces on a Shoestring

Kyiv’s forces networked under Russian attack, achieving a cut-priced ‘MacGyver’ version of systems the Pentagon has spent decades developing

By Sam Schechner and Daniel Michaels
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Sam.Schechner@wsj.com
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Dan.Michaels@wsj.com
Jan. 3, 2023 5:30 am ET

Ukraine has achieved a cut-price version of what the Pentagon has spent decades and billions of dollars striving to accomplish: digitally networked fighters, intelligence and weapons.

Kyiv’s improvised web of drones, fighters and weapons, linked through satellite communications and custom software, is giving its soldiers a level of intelligence, coordination and accuracy that has allowed the initially outnumbered and outgunned forces to run circles around Russia’s massive but lumbering armies.

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