In March of 2026, Ukraine did something no country has ever done before. It opened an online portal giving allied governments and defense companies direct access to more than two million hours of combat drone footage — that's the equivalent of 228 years. And every day, more than five terabytes of footage is added. Kyiv's motivation with this is straightforward: share their data with allies, help them build better autonomous weapons, and in return, get smarter, faster AI tools for its front lines against Russia.

But the combat data portal is just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath is four years of hard-won battlefield experience that has turned "Made in Ukraine" expertise into a global export.

DW Correspondent Rebecca Ritters was allowed into a top-secret startup workshop to see how new warfare tools are made.