читати українською

When Bohdan Sas and his team founded Buntar Aerospace in 2023, the drone market already seemed oversaturated. FPV drones, strike systems, tactical reconnaissance platforms — every niche appeared to be taken. But Bohdan saw what others missed: a massive blind spot stretching 50–100 kilometers behind enemy lines. That space — where no FPV can reach, and where sending a human is a death sentence — became the birthplace of Buntar-3, a reconnaissance unmanned aerial complex built to survive the most aggressive electronic warfare environments on the modern battlefield.
The name "Buntar" — Ukrainian for "Rebel" — is not a marketing device. It is a code of conduct. A rebellion against 7-year development cycles of classical defense, against "business as usual" decisions, against the narrative of Ukraine as a country that asks rather than offers. The company has built its own culture — a "rebel club" — where decisions are made at the pace of war and front-line feedback is the primary technical brief.
In March 2026, Buntar Aerospace raised $10.4M in a round led by US-based Axon Enterprise. Total capital raised exceeded $15M. This is not just a number — it is a tectonic shift in how global capital views Ukrainian defense tech. We spoke with Bohdan Sas about the company's technological philosophy, the role of the Techosystem ecosystem, and his vision for what comes next.

— Bohdan, the name "Buntar" sounds like a challenge. What exactly is your team rebelling against in today's Defense Tech industry? Is it a rebellion against outdated bureaucratic processes, or against classical approaches to aviation engineering?
— Spot on! The rebellion in our name is not against any person. It is a position against a system that has spent decades deciding what a defense product should look like. Classical defense lives on cycles: 7–10 years from requirements to a production run, thousands of pages of documentation, endless approvals. The war we are fighting right now does not allow for those timelines.
We are rebelling against three things simultaneously.
The first — processes for the sake of processes. If a decision goes through five approval stages while it is needed on the front line today, the value of that decision is zero.
The second — the "we've always done it this way" approach. A NATO-trained officer is often surprised to see how in Ukraine a problem gets solved in a week that would take a year in their structure. We are not criticizing their path — we simply have our own.
The third — the positioning of Ukraine as a country that asks. We offer technology, experience, and scale that exist nowhere else in the world. That is a different economy of relationships with partners.
Our name is embedded in our culture. Inside the company we call it the "rebel club" — people who do the right things without waiting for anyone's permission. That is our code.

— You started in 2023, when the UAV market was already oversaturated with solutions. What fundamental gap in the intelligence system did you see that compelled you to build your own platform from scratch?
In 2023, the market was truly oversaturated with FPV and small strike drones. They covered the need to find and hit targets at 5–10 kilometers. That is a critical layer — well understood, well served.
The gap was at a different level — operational-tactical reconnaissance at a depth of 50–100 kilometers. In plain terms: seeing what is happening in the enemy's rear before it reaches your sector. Platforms for those missions existed, but with the evolution of enemy electronic warfare, the available solutions needed to change.
My business partner Ivan Kaunov joined the Defense Forces from the start of the full-scale invasion, where he had to work directly with UAVs. Through his experience, we had a clear picture of what the front actually needed and what was wrong with existing solutions.
So we came at it from a different angle. Instead of assembling something from what was available, we reframed the question: what does a product look like that survives the most demanding conditions? And we built the platform from that answer outward. EW-resilient communications, GPS-independent navigation, vertical takeoff and landing without catapults or parachutes, robust avionics. That is longer and more expensive than assembling a standard aircraft from off-the-shelf components. But the goal was never to build and sell a drone. The goal was to close a specific blind spot.
One more thing we noticed: the front outgrows itself every month. What worked six months ago does not work today. That meant the product could not be a box. It had to be a system with continuous updates. That is where Buntar Copilot came from — software for mission planning and control.

— Your team combines a startup mindset with real military experience. How does that symbiosis affect R&D speed? Have there been cases where a "civilian" idea broke against the harsh reality of front-line feedback?
— The symbiosis works when the team includes people who have actually been on the front line. Civilian engineers look at range and flight time as the primary characteristics. A soldier who has worked with the technology in combat conditions will tell you that what matters most is how long it takes the crew to deploy, complete the mission successfully, and disappear. Because if the launch procedure takes 40 minutes, the enemy has enough time to adjust artillery fire on your position. We built VTOL into Buntar-3 precisely because it shortens the "launched — executed — gone" cycle.
Cases where a civilian idea broke against front-line reality did happen — as they do for every manufacturer. That is a normal process. The most common scenario: an engineer proposes a solution that works perfectly in testing. You take it to the range, hand it over to the crew — and two hours later the feedback comes back. That is front-line feedback, and it is what sets us apart from classical defense companies abroad.
Our R&D speed is built on short cycles: idea, prototype, test with a combat unit, iteration. Often within a week or two you can see whether an update makes sense.
— Buntar-3 is positioned as a system built for high-risk environments. Tell us about your approach to GPS-independent navigation. How did you teach the aircraft to operate without satellites in an environment where enemy electronic warfare is at its most aggressive?— Relying solely on satellites in modern warfare is suicide. GPS is jammed, coordinates are spoofed. A drone that cannot fly without a satellite signal simply will not get off the ground.
We trained the aircraft to combine two sources. The first is visual navigation: the camera looks downward, and the operator maps what it sees against terrain features and landmarks along the route. The second is inertial navigation.
Separately, there is EW-resilient communications. There is no single technology here — it is a stack: the right combination of communication modules both on the antenna and on the aircraft, plus algorithms for what to do when something goes wrong. We declare the operational range at which the signal holds under combat conditions.
— Your product Buntar Copilot automates 90% of the operator's workload. Can we say your ultimate goal is to turn the pilot into a "mission manager" rather than a direct operator? How does that change personnel training requirements in the Armed Forces of Ukraine?— Yes, that is the direction we are moving. In the classical model, an operator performs dozens of routine actions in parallel: aircraft control, navigation, system monitoring, image analysis. That is an enormous cognitive load. Under stress, errors are guaranteed.
Buntar Copilot removes the routine. The software plans the flight accounting for terrain, weather, and tactical situation, and integrates with DELTA and other situational awareness systems. By our estimates, the system will handle the majority of an operator's routine tasks on their behalf.
This significantly changes personnel training. Less time on purely aviation skills — takeoff, landing, manual control. More time on tactics, intelligence interpretation, and system interaction. Essentially, we are lowering the entry threshold — a strong operator is not built over six months at a training center; they can start working productively within a couple of weeks. That matters, because human resources are the most expensive asset we have.
This is part of our mission. We want unmanned systems fighting in place of people. Fewer people in harm's way means fewer losses.

— You place a strong emphasis on reducing the cost of a reconnaissance mission through reusability. What is the "record" number of successful sorties logged by a single aircraft, and what AI algorithms help the drone survive where others are lost?
— Reusability is the philosophical difference between an FPV and a reconnaissance platform. A kamikaze completes one task and, more often than not, does not come back. A reconnaissance aircraft has to come back every time. The economics of an operation depend on how many sorties a single airframe completes before it is lost. We do not publicly disclose specific numbers for individual aircraft for operational security reasons. What I will say is this: there are Buntar-3s in combat units that have completed multiple large-scale, high-risk missions and are still flying.First, the aircraft survive thanks to Buntar Copilot algorithms, which allow a mission to be modeled in a way that routes around all enemy EW systems and radar. Second, even if the drone enters an EW-saturated zone, it searches for an alternative communication channel and allows the trajectory to be adjusted.The drone survives not on code alone. The system survives: fast updates, honest debriefing after every incident, immediate sharing of insights from the front.
— The recent $10.4M funding round led by Axon Enterprise is a tectonic shift for Ukrainian Defense Tech. What does this deal mean for the Ukrainian ecosystem as a whole? Does it open doors for other startups to global security giants?
— This round is a signal with several layers.The first — a serious international player with a market cap in the tens of billions is investing in a Ukrainian defence-tech company on strategic grounds. Axon assessed the technology, sees the market, sees the partnership upside. That means Ukrainian developments are being noticed globally.The second. Until 2026, Western capital entered our sector cautiously. Many investors watched but did not move due to uncertainty around regulatory and geopolitical risks. The Axon deal shows others that it is possible to structure a clean, transparent transaction with an industry leader here. That lowers the psychological barrier.The third. The doors have opened wider — but only for those whose product is genuinely ready for global competition. Because the bar has now risen. Western players are not waiting for Ukrainian enthusiasm and front-line experience — they assume that by default. What they are waiting for is a product, documentation, an accountable team, and predictable economics. That is positive pressure on the entire ecosystem.For Ukrainian defense as a whole, this is proof of concept: we are no longer asking — we are offering. That is a fundamentally different position in the conversation with partners.

— You often speak about "response speed" as a security measure. How do you structure the software update process for Copilot so that the drones become smarter faster than the enemy can adapt?
— Software update speed is a product survival question. The enemy adapts, and if we update once a quarter, they have us beat within a week.
The architecture is built so that changes reach the aircraft quickly. Buntar Copilot has a feedback function built directly into the field interface. An operator can log during or after a mission: behavior was wrong here, the system caught EW interference there and nearly lost signal. Engineers see those reports in near-real time. The fix goes into the next update cycle.
— Buntar Aerospace is an active member of Techosystem. What is the main "added value" you get from being part of the Defense Cluster? Does it help in communication with the state or in resolving standardization issues?
— I would highlight two things here.
First, shared testing methodologies, technical knowledge exchange between companies, and access to expertise from adjacent domains. We do not have to reinvent what our peers have already figured out.
Second, when a Western investor or government looks at the Ukrainian defence-tech sector, the cluster gives them a filter and a frame: these are players who have passed internal community verification; here are their standards. That reduces risk and due diligence time for an external partner, while giving us faster entry into the international context.
Transparent rules within the community are also a bonus. We have space to talk honestly about difficulties, not just achievements. Without that, you cannot build a healthy environment.

— The Defense Cluster brings together very different players — from drone developers to cybersecurity specialists. Have there been any unexpected partnerships or synergies within Techosystem that accelerated Buntar's development?
— At a certain point we found ourselves in exactly the position where we could give more than we took. That is normal and right. Ukrainian defence-tech does not grow vertically — only horizontally, through strong connections between players.
Smaller teams came to us with specific questions. We opened up our own findings from the work, showed where we had already made mistakes. We shared our approach to hiring engineers who operate at the right pace. We passed on working contacts where we could.
Why did we do it? A single Ukrainian company in this industry is worth significantly more when it has a strong environment around it. If the players next to us are weak, we lose together in international competition. The cluster is an instrument of collective weight.
The strongest side effect of mentorship: when you regularly explain to less experienced teams how you solved something, you see things in your own solution that you had not noticed before. That makes you better faster than any internal retrospective.
Today the situation is different. The younger teams have grown. Many of them have their own strong founders, their own expertise in specific domains. So the cluster's role for us now is horizontal exchange between equals. And to me, that is the best indicator that the ecosystem has truly come together.

— How do you see the role of the Defense Cluster in forming a "single voice" for Ukraine's tech sector on the international stage? What can Techosystem offer Western investors that they cannot find on their own?
— On the international stage, a single Ukrainian company disappears into the noise. A Western investor, ministry, or procurement agency needs a frame: who is who, what is the sector's strength, who to talk to about a specific capability. Without that frame, every partner starts from zero.
The Defense Cluster provides that frame. It aggregates Ukrainian defence-tech in a format that Western partners understand: company catalogues, joint delegations, a coordinated position at international platforms, defense exhibitions, and in communication with NATO and European structures.
First, Techosystem can offer Western investors filtration. The market is noisy, and distinguishing a production-ready product from a pitch deck is a task an investor without local context cannot solve. The cluster has that context. Second, access. Real interaction with military units, with test ranges — a natural working environment. Third, feedback from actual end-users. A Western product can perform brilliantly on a range and fail completely in the field. The cluster enables rapid hypothesis testing in a real environment.
Ukraine today is where the new logic of warfare is being formed. The Defense Cluster is the instrument that makes that logic accessible to allies in a constructive format.

— Faces of Impact is about people. What personal "impact" do you want to see in five years: winning the technology race, hundreds of operators' lives saved, or Ukraine as the world's leading exporter of intelligent defense systems?
— It is not honest to choose just one. All three are connected, and if any one of them is missing, the others lose their meaning.
The technology race matters, but on its own it is worth nothing. If you are first to build something impressive but it has not reduced casualties at the front or has not survived the test of front-line electronic warfare, you have simply wasted your time.
Saved lives — of operators and infantry — are the strongest internal compass. I know why we build a reconnaissance drone and not an FPV. Because when you have quality eyes in the sky, you do not need to send a person to look. That is our answer to the demand to "value human life." In five years, I want to see the number not in our revenue, but in the statistics of the units we worked with: how much their casualty rates changed, how many operations were completed without requiring a human to enter the reconnaissance risk zone.
Ukraine as an exporter of intelligent defense systems is the third goal, and it is the one that funds the first two. Without it, we remain a country that "defended itself impressively." With it — a country that sets the rules of the industry. Those are different positions on the map of the world, and the second is strategically more important to us. At the same time, the role of the state and the strategic benefit to Ukraine must come first in this process.
If I were to put it in a formula: in five years I want Ukrainian defense technology to be the standard — for our own army, for allies, for the market. Personal impact, for me, is measured by how many lives were saved and how many jobs were created in this country around that technology.
— What advice would you give to young teams building their first drone in a garage today: focus on the hardware, or on the algorithms that control it?
— If the choice is between hardware and algorithms — choose algorithms. Hardware is available to everyone. Off-the-shelf components are on the market. Competing hard on the airframe and the engine is unlikely to work — there will always be cheaper Chinese options and simpler domestic alternatives.
But the brain of the aircraft — communication algorithms, navigation, target detection, behavior in non-standard situations — that is where you can become irreplaceable. Right now the competency deficit there is greater than the hardware deficit.
Second piece of advice: do not start with exhibitions and presentations. Start with a flight — a real flight in real conditions with a real unit. Your very first prototype on a test range will teach you more than six months of office discussions.
Third — talk to military personnel directly. Not through intermediaries, not through media, not through someone who heard something from someone else. Ask the person who came back from their position yesterday what broke, what was missing, what should have been done differently. That is your technical specification and your product revision notes.
And the last one: team matters more than technology. Technology can be bought, copied, reimagined. A team that holds its pace is rare. Build that first.