How Ukraine’s Technologists and Artists are Rewriting the Country’s Future

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): International Policy Digest

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/11/19

Davis Richardson serves as CEO of America-Ukraine Strategic Partners (AUSP), a firm that links Ukraine’s growing defense-tech sector with U.S. capital and industrial expertise. He is also a limited partner at Green Flag Ventures, which backs dual-use Ukrainian startups such as Falcons and Swarmer. Richardson previously founded Paradox Public Relations, co-producing the award-nominated “Preserving Art in Crisis/Kyiv Art Sessions,” a diplomatic and cultural initiative spotlighting Ukrainian creativity under wartime strain. His career now spans investment, security, and cultural diplomacy, and he regularly works with policymakers, investors, and universities to advance deeper U.S.–Ukraine cooperation. AUSP is part of the U.S.–Ukraine Business Council, and Davis’ commentary has appeared in several outlets.

In this interview, Richardson sketches a capital-centered strategy for Ukraine’s defense-tech future: draw in American investors, pair high-performing Ukrainian firms with U.S. partners, and prepare for consolidation as the current glut of drone hardware gives way to more selective demand. He points to software innovators such as Swarmer, which recently secured a $15 million Series A, along with RF and electronic-warfare actors like Falcons, Himera, Kara Dag, and Teletactica. On policy, he observes that President Zelensky’s meeting with President Trump did not yield Tomahawk cruise missiles and argues that deeper industrial integration ultimately matters more than headline-friendly “drone deal” tallies. He also stresses the need for cultural resilience, drawing on Paradox PR’s Preserving Art in Crisis campaign. Drones now shape outcomes across the battlefield, yet officials have not released data on the lives they have saved.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You’ve worked with a large number of clients in different areas. What is front and center in the work you’re doing regarding the defence needs of Ukrainians?

Davis Richardson: A primary focus right now is attracting investment into Ukrainian defence-technology companies. I oversee America-Ukraine Strategic Partners (AUSP), a private entity launched last year, where I serve as CEO. I’m also an LP in Green Flag Ventures, which has invested in several dual-use Ukrainian defence-tech companies—Swarmer, Himera (secure radios), Kara Dag (AI drone detection), Teletactica (EW-resistant communications), and, most recently, Falcons (RF direction-finding/EW).

At AUSP, we’re seeing larger financial institutions take a genuine interest. JPMorgan Chase recently announced a $1.5 trillion “security and resiliency” initiative over ten years, including up to $10 billion in direct equity and venture investments across defence, frontier tech, energy, and advanced manufacturing. Banks we speak with in New York are moving into dual-use and defence. Over the next year, I expect substantial investments and some consolidation in the United States. In my view, there’s currently an oversaturation of drone-hardware companies, and larger primes will likely acquire many of them. Our main objective in Ukraine is to keep facilitating partnerships between strong Ukrainian companies and U.S. investors, and to match them with suitable partners for expansion and joint ventures.

Jacobsen: What about drone software? It evolves much faster than hardware, though hardware is advancing quickly on both fronts.

Richardson: On the software side, there’s tremendous innovation. Swarmer recently raised $15 million in a Series A round; it builds software to control swarms of AI-enabled drones and is one of the most interesting companies in the space.

U.S. investors led their most recent round. Regarding Washington, President Zelensky met President Trump and discussed Tomahawk missiles alongside a potential “drone deal.” Reporting indicates Zelensky even floated exchanging Ukrainian drones and technology for Tomahawks; there has been no U.S. commitment to provide Tomahawks so far, and figures reported in the media refer to broader prospective packages rather than a concluded “$35 billion drone deal.”

Zelensky described his own outlook as “realistic” after the meeting. Stepping back, the U.S. and Ukrainian defence sectors have a lot to offer one another, and industrial ties are deepening through investment and joint projects.

Jacobsen: Do we have any estimates or indications of how many Ukrainian soldiers’ lives have been saved because of drones?

Richardson: There isn’t a reliable official count of the number of soldiers’ lives drones have saved. What we do have are credible analyses and UN or think-tank reports showing that drones now account for a large share of battlefield effects and can reduce risk by replacing some manned tasks, such as reconnaissance, strike, resupply, and casualty evacuation. But quantifying “lives saved” specifically isn’t something authorities have published.

When you look at Ukraine’s overall defence—and the fact that this remains a David-versus-Goliath struggle—a large part of its success stems from Ukrainian engineers and the new methods of defence they have pioneered. Without that ingenuity and given that Ukraine lacked a large defence base before 2022, you can see how dramatically things have changed through initiatives such as Brave1 and other government programs. These efforts have transformed Ukraine into a significant defence ecosystem.

One reason Ukraine has become such an inspiration in this fight for freedom is the technology developed since 2022. And it’s not just Russia they’re fighting. Russia has reportedly sent North Korean conscripts, and there have been credible reports of Cuban fighters as well. China is studying these methods of war and financially supporting Russia’s war machine, while Iran has moved its Shahed drone production into Russia over the past year. It is an entire axis. Without Ukraine’s technological capabilities and the ingenuity of its engineers, this would be a very different story.

Jacobsen: There are reports of Indian nationals being tricked into joining the war, some of whom return, but many do not.

Richardson: Yes. Prime Minister Modi appeared at the rally that China’s president held alongside Vladimir Putin. And President Trump was right—he congratulated them as they openly conspired against the United States and its allies. It is very much an axis.

The United States has always been a slow-moving beast. Alexis de Tocqueville remarked long ago that the U.S. is often the last to enter a conflict, but when it does, it commits fully. He observed this in Democracy in America, written not long after the nation’s founding. There’s a longstanding tension in American political culture: the desire for independence and non-intervention versus the moral drive to do good abroad. Historically, the United States has generally been a positive force, though credibility was lost with Iraq and Afghanistan, creating hesitancy about direct involvement in newer conflicts.

But there is precedent for this pattern, and we’re now seeing strong indicators from the Trump administration on Russia policy. The U.S. Treasury, under Secretary Besant, recently imposed another round of sanctions on Russia. Negotiations also include Tomahawk missiles and the proposal to unfreeze Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s defence. President Trump is correct that some European countries fund Ukraine’s defence while simultaneously buying Russian oil and energy—that contradiction remains unresolved.

So while European rhetoric and photo ops with Ukrainian leaders appear supportive, the practical question stands: why keep buying Russian oil, and why not unlock frozen Russian assets? If they are serious about defending Ukraine, they need to put their money where their mouth is. That’s one thing President Trump has accurately identified.

Jacobsen: Information warfare is hardly new, but its reach today is unmistakable. Russian propagandists push narratives through traditional media, and Western podcasters and influencers sometimes amplify them without scrutiny, becoming useful conduits for those messages. The ecosystem stretches across video games, news cycles, and opinion platforms. There is the familiar state-driven machinery, yet I’m referring more specifically to intentional campaigns operating beyond Russia’s borders. How do you frame digital accountability in that environment, particularly when confronting coordinated propaganda? And are there practical OSINT tools that ordinary citizens can rely on to cut through the noise?

Richardson: Accountability is the keyword you mentioned, and we think about it constantly. When someone promotes propaganda—knowingly or unknowingly—or spreads disinformation, nobody likes to admit they were, as you called it, “useful idiots.” Nobody likes to be corrected, either. One of the failures of recent U.S. administrations has been treating disinformation as an industry—something to be studied, fact-checked, and regulated. Fact-checking is essential, but given how quickly information spreads online, verifying every false statement or running AI to monitor every political speech in real time just isn’t realistic.

What I’d opt for instead is this: when someone claims something is disinformation, we should look at how we build cultural resilience. Through my firm, Paradox Public Relations, we’re working with media partners to strengthen cultural infrastructure, because culture is where a nation’s historical identity lies. It’s something no one else can define for you, and that debate has to come from within the country itself.

One example is our Preserving Art in Crisis media campaign, done with ArtShield and the Ukrainian organization Dom Masterclass. The idea is simple: what is the point of defence if there’s no culture left to defend? We’re focused on ensuring the voices truly representing Ukraine are amplified and accurately portrayed in global and social media, with the infrastructure necessary to sustain them.

There’s significant debate around disinformation, but I think there’s a way to step around it—through “show, don’t tell.” If someone repeats narratives aligned with Russia’s interests, the question becomes: what does the ideological counterpart look like, and why aren’t certain Ukrainian voices gaining traction in the press? That’s the real challenge—ensuring the truth is not only spoken but also seen and supported.

Jacobsen: In conversations around your work, I often hear this idea of living between two worlds. Mass communication technologies have accelerated cultural drift in every direction, yet we continue to rely on the old vocabulary of “East” and “West.” It raises the question of what those labels actually capture. The so-called West often presents its values as universal—you see that especially at the UN—while other systems remain more rooted in local traditions. Ukrainians I’ve interviewed note recurring blind spots in Western reporting and analysis, and the reverse holds as well. From a broadly Ukrainian standpoint, what does Western journalism and research tend to understand accurately, where does it fall short, and what isn’t being highlighted at all??

Richardson: I agree with you. The term “the West” has been used by many European and U.S. interests to otherize people. But what does it really mean? Countries like South Korea and Japan are part of what some experts call the liberal international order, yet they’re often excluded from that Western label. It’s a vague construct we use to divide, and we need a new vocabulary. If I’ve used the term “the West” in interviews before, I’ll apologize—it’s outdated language.

The underlying ethos worth preserving is the idea of individual sovereignty and civil liberties—the right to live your life as you choose—versus the kind of state collectivism seen in governments like China and Russia. What we still call “the West,” for lack of a better term, is rooted in protecting the individual as the foundation of society. Freedom requires that individual rights be protected and that people be able to self-select into their own communities.

Another imperfect term I’ll use is capitalism. One of the great benefits of a global free-market system is the ability to choose not only the communities you identify with but also those where you find solidarity and peace. In Russia, if you offend the wrong oligarch, you can be cast out entirely. In parts of the Middle East, if you fail to interact with a member of a ruling family, your place in life can be permanently limited.

By contrast, in the United States, you get second chances. You can make mistakes, and if your idea is good and you execute it well, there is still a meritocratic system that rewards you. That is ultimately what Ukrainians are fighting for. Under the old Soviet system, if you offended the wrong power broker, it could ruin your future. The Maidan and Orange Revolutions were about the freedom to choose your communities and reject monopolistic control.

There’s a great deal to admire in that. The U.S. continually reinvents itself, and what seems shocking in the present often has historical precedent. At America-Ukraine Strategic Partners, we believe the values that drive Ukrainians are the same ones that founded the United States. I sometimes say—controversially—that Ukrainians and Americans have more in common than Ukrainians and Europeans, because both understand that freedom isn’t free; it demands constant sacrifice. Both nations were born through revolution.

If both sides can genuinely understand that and align around it, then everything we’re building will have been worth it. We’re working on several initiatives I’m optimistic about: strong partnerships with the Kyiv School of Economics, Taras Shevchenko University, and multiple Ukrainian and U.S. manufacturers. We’re now at the stage of connecting those pieces.

You’re also starting to see the tides turn in Ukraine. They’ve just developed the Flamingo, a long-range ballistic missile, and there have been deep strikes inside Russian territory that are underreported in global—and especially Russian—media. It’s entirely possible that in five or ten years, Ukraine could become an economic superpower, and the United States may increasingly depend on Ukrainian innovation and production.

We want to play our small role in making that future possible. We believe in both countries—and in what they can achieve together.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Davis.

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