How Ukraine’s new tech foils Russian aerial attacks 

ONCE RUSSIA’S full invasion got rolling on February 24th 2022, Ukraine’s prospects for defending its airspace looked poor. The country’s radar coverage was patchy even before its radar stations came under attack, and many incoming drones and cruise missiles were flying too low to be spotted by stations still standing.

War, however, can spur innovation. Four days after the invasion began, a group of ambitious Ukrainian techies formed an outfit called Technari to develop an alternative system, known as ePPO, for detecting and tracking Russian aerial attacks. Gennady Suldin, a co-founder, describes it as “human radar”. Consisting of a smartphone app and an artificial-intelligence (AI) model, it allows verified Ukrainian citizens to report flying objects they see or hear with the push of a button.