Ukraine took third place in NATO competition dedicated to countering fiber optic FPV drones

Ukrainian company DONS took third place at the prestigious international hackathon NATO Innovation Challenge 2025-II, dedicated to developing solutions to counter fiber-optically controlled FPV drones. This was reported by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. The event took place in the capital of Estonia - Tallinn, where 11 teams from eight countries gathered, including Ukraine, the USA, France, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania and Poland.

The winners of the competition were two American companies — KMB Telematics Inc. (first place) and Sentradel (second place) and the Ukrainian team DONS, which took third place. All teams were given the opportunity to refine their solution in cooperation with relevant NATO structures.

"The participation of Ukrainian companies in NATO innovation hackathons is critically important for accelerating the development of miltech, as it allows us to synchronize our technical requirements with Alliance standards. Through the JATEC platform, we not only integrate combat experience into scalable solutions, but also ensure the interoperability of means to achieve dominance on the battlefield," emphasized Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Valeriy Churkin.

The hackathon was organized by the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC) in cooperation with NATO Command Transformation (ACT) and the NATO Joint Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). The jury consisted of representatives from the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, JATEC and NATO.

This year's competition set a record for the number of submitted applications — 162, of which 42 came from Ukrainian teams. This indicates a high level of engineering thought and miltech among Ukrainian developers even in the conditions of a full-scale war.