Ukrainian-American tech exec bypasses ‘deep state’ to get supplies to the troops

SEOUL, South Korea — He is no front-line fighter, but former tech executive Andrey Liscovich adds significant muscle to Ukraine’s uneven battle against Russia.

The Ukrainian American is leveraging his Silicon Valley expertise and contacts to broker deals and scour the world for the high-tech equipment and munitions Kyiv’s forces desperately need against their much larger, more populous and better-armed neighbor.

Though President Trump has opened new diplomatic channels to Moscow and unnerved many in Ukraine since taking office last month, Mr. Liscovich is doing something he might applaud. By vaulting over bureaucratic barriers and accessing free markets, Mr. Liscovich directly funnels supplies to troops on the front efficiently and economically.

With a doctorate from Harvard, the San Francisco resident and former CEO of Uber Works, an app that helped employers manage the use of shift workers, had it all. When the long-simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted into full-scale war in February 2022, he dashed home.

Having grown up speaking Russian and Ukrainian, Mr. Liscovich had a litmus test for the conflict’s morality.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “main argument is that Ukraine persecuted Russian speakers, so I had a very simple test: ‘At what point will I be stopped and compelled to speak Ukrainian?’” he said. “Not once has it ever happened in Ukraine.”

After evacuating his parents from Zaporizhzhia, he volunteered for Ukraine’s military just days after the 2022 invasion. A recruitment colonel said that, given his background skills, Mr. Liscovich was better suited to logistics sourcing.

Logistic warrior

In the war’s early days, Ukrainian volunteers were handed AK-47 rifles and ammunition but lacked uniforms, armor and medical kits. Mr. Liscovich went to work.

American friends contributed financially. “Military surplus stores were operating, and you could buy with a credit card,” he said. “Friends wired money, and I turned it into product in two hours.”

Remarkably, the Ukrainian government did not requisition the materiel.

“In hindsight, that was a welcome development,” he said. “Store owners were able to replenish once we bought up their inventory — of Ukrainian and imported products — and were able to act as a supply chain that was more effective than the Ministry of Defense.”

After forging relationships with front-line battalion and brigade commanders, he established the nonprofit Ukraine Defense Organization, which raised more than $13 million.

Private donations were “a drop in the bucket” compared with government assistance, so he pivoted to brokering supply deals. He has since helped manage $300 million in transactions.

“We connect three parties — vendor, funder and end user,” he said. “In a perfect world, this would be done by the [Ministry of Defense], but the MOD was overwhelmed and had very few people who traveled, who spoke English or who understood new capabilities. They were focused on shells and tanks — classic assets.”

Allied capitals expected the Ukrainian government to submit lists of what was required for the war effort, but frustrated officers went it alone. “Random majors were writing to Biden asking for what they needed,” Mr. Liscovich said.

Leveraging his professional experience and contacts, he traveled to India, Israel, South Korea and the U.S. on procurement missions despite his protests that he was not an arms dealer.

“I never did lethal [weapons deals], as nonprofits are restricted in the U.S. from dealing with guns. It’s a gray area.”

Everything he sources — drones, SUVs, optics, battery packs, power banks and tablet computers — is dual-use, with civilian and military applications, but what he has supplied plays “a massive role in the kill chain.”

His methods sidestep the need for the end-user certificates required for global arms deals, making clearing customs and international shipping easier.

Tech bro in a tech war

Used for tactical reconnaissance, artillery spotting, signals relays, supply drop and direct strike, drones have played a central, critical role in the Russia-Ukraine fighting. Price is key given the constant need to replenish drone supplies, particularly given Ukrainian finances. “Most money spent in this war is payroll,” said Mr. Liscovich, calculating Kyiv’s annual equipment budget at less than $10 billion.

“We buy cheap as vendors give discounts,” he said. “We don’t pay [value-added taxes] or import taxes, as it’s humanitarian assistance.”

His first stop was the U.S., “as this is where our network is,” but he encountered problems, “We realized that the U.S. did not have a lot to offer. U.S. drones were ineffective and dramatically more expensive than their Chinese counterparts.”

American drones were designed for the low-intensity war on terrorism rather than for the high-intensity Ukraine conflict, where Russia possesses sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities.

“Chinese-made DJI drones were cheaper than U.S. drones and more useful in every spec: time in air, better radio range, better cameras, better user interface,” he said.

Quadcopter drones made by DJI, the world’s largest commercial drone maker, have been used in wedding photography and police surveillance and cost less than $2,000 for 40-minute flight times.

The DJI drones were acquired from third countries. In Ukraine, workshops “jail-broke” the drones’ embedded software to block internet communication with the servers at DJI’s headquarters. Ukrainian technicians installed new features, including thermal cameras for night missions, explosives for suicide strikes and “Vog” rifle grenades for directly dropping onto enemy lines.

Recruiting local technical experts proved an easy hurdle to clear.

Prewar Ukraine “had a very large outsourcing sector for Western companies,” Mr. Liscovich said. The tech-fluent, English-speaking workforce was “the primary source for these innovations.”

The results have proved lethal on the battlefield. “Three-quarters of kills today originate with drones,” he said. The accuracy provided by the drones has made artillery strikes more effective, offering a massive economic upside for Ukraine’s limited munition arsenals.

Amid the cat-and-mouse game of electronic warfare, a $200,000 portable European-made monitoring drone sustained hits in early deployments in the war.

“Our role was to connect the vendor to the end user, creating a feedback loop,” Mr. Liscovich said. Subsequently, the vendor fixed the navigation and communications vulnerabilities, and in 2024, production shifted to Ukraine.

A civilian digital solution enables real-time terrain monitoring. “Troops need simple cameras with zoom and night vision,” he said. “We buy them from home security vendors.”

Communications are maintained through Starlink satellite internet terminals and by cellphone towers where Starlink does not work. A “geofence” prevents the drones’ use in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine.

Path to victory

Mr. Liscovich summarized his role as “making everyone talk to each other and settling miscommunications. I am a small part of making this happen. I am by no means the only driving force.”

Procurement is no longer a one-way street. With three years of combat experience, Ukraine exports its new skills and products.

Apps aggregate multiple data sources — radio intercepts, social media monitoring, electronic mapping — and then use artificial intelligence systems to transcribe them into intelligence summaries. AI also guides long-range strike drones, avoiding the need for communications that the enemy could hack.

Mr. Liscovich says making Ukraine’s systems and logistics more efficient is key to negating Russia’s financial, equipment and manpower advantages. He sees plenty of “wriggle room” for improvement.

“What you do, it can be two to three times’ orders of magnitude,” he said. “Increasing the top line, funding from allies, is impossible, but lowering cost per kill by a factor of five is attainable.”

The problem? Bureaucratic hierarchies.

“The main source of excellence in this war is grass-roots human capital injected into the military in 2022 from the private sector,” he said. “Empowering that, and bypassing layers above, is the fastest route to a higher return on dollar spent.”