Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov is launching a defense technology company backed by Palantir CEO Alex Karp, turning wartime experience into a new product line for Kyiv and its allies. Karp is set to become the company’s first lead investor, according to Fedorov’s press office, though the size of the investment was not disclosed. The arrangement puts a powerful U.S. tech executive at the center of a venture built from Ukraine’s war economy, where battlefield knowledge gets packaged for export.
In a video posted by Fedorov on X on Tuesday, Karp said the company could bring Ukraine’s knowledge and experience of warfare "as a product to allied countries." He also said, "You and your colleagues are launching a company that I think will be defining for the world." The language is blunt. War becomes a product. Experience from a country under bombardment becomes a commodity for other states and their security apparatuses.
Who Gets to Package the War
Few other details about the venture have been disclosed, including its name, the technologies it plans to develop or the extent of Karp’s involvement. Fedorov’s press office declined to provide further information but said it planned to announce the next stages of cooperation with Palantir gradually. Palantir didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The secrecy fits the familiar pattern: decisions made at the top, details withheld from everyone else until the deal is already moving.
The venture comes as Ukraine’s war with Russia has accelerated the development and deployment of technologies including drones, artificial intelligence and battlefield software. Fedorov, a longtime advocate of using technology to transform Ukraine’s military, said the company would seek to apply lessons learned during the war to technologies that could be used both by Ukraine and its allies. In a statement, Fedorov said, "During the full-scale war, our team gained unique experience working with defense technologies in Ukraine and seeing firsthand how technology is transforming modern warfare." That experience, earned in a brutal conflict, is now being routed into a private company with a U.S. investor waiting in the wings.
Who Pays the Price
Fedorov, 35, was removed as defense minister by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July as part of a major government reshuffle, after just six months in the role. His dismissal prompted protests in Ukraine. The protests show the human cost of elite reshuffling, where a government can move ministers around like pieces on a board and ordinary people are left to absorb the consequences.
Since leaving government, Fedorov has been courting U.S. investors and technology executives as he pursues a series of projects focused on Ukraine’s defense sector. He is also seeking U.S. backing for a separate defense technology investment fund focused on areas including battlefield robotics, interceptor drones and AI-enabled missiles, the Financial Times reported last week. The money trail runs straight through the same corporate and state channels that keep war profitable and innovation tethered to military demand.
The Tech Elite and the War Machine
The former defense minister had cultivated relationships with prominent U.S. tech executives during the war. Last month, he called Elon Musk "the most important tech person and entrepreneur in the world for our country," praising Starlink’s move to prevent Russian forces from using the satellite internet service. That praise says plenty about where power gathers in wartime: not just in ministries and presidencies, but in the hands of tech bosses whose platforms and systems can shape who gets connected, who gets cut off, and who gets to call it progress.
Karp’s comments, Fedorov’s fundraising, and the silence around the venture’s details all point in the same direction. A war that has already accelerated drones, artificial intelligence and battlefield software is now feeding a private company built to sell that experience onward. The people living through the war get the risk. The investors get the product.