By Olha Chepil | 2023-11-14

KYIV -- In a small town in western Ukraine, a local garage bustles with activity.

Metal is cut, parts are welded, and unusual designs are primed, painted and assembled to produce buggies unlike any other in the world.

Local entrepreneur Vladimir Sadyk has been making things out of metal for 20 years: garage doors, decorative stairs and other everyday items.

"When free from our main work, my friends and I built a buggy for personal use," Sadyk said.

"Over several years, we refined it so that it can maneuver on hilly terrain, to entertain the kids," he said.

"When the war began, my daughter decided to donate it to the front."

Soon, soldiers and volunteers began asking for more vehicles. Alongside friends and family, Sadyk rolled up his sleeves and started producing buggies for the war effort.

"They are very manuverable. We enlarged the frame a bit to allow for the installation of cargo compartments, if necessary. A vehicle like this outdoes a tank."

"It's like an ant that has a deadly bite -- you can install a ... Javelin, and then there's no more tank," Sadyk said. "And if you cover the buggy with a camouflage net, then the enemy won't understand what it is."

The buggies weigh about 600kg and are made of readily available parts, which means Ukrainian soldiers can perform their own repairs if they break down.

"This is my unique invention," Sadyk said. "The Americans have had buggies since the 1980s, but they take a different approach ... they move quickly only in deserts. But we have fields, ditches, fallen trees and pits. We need vehicles that can maneuver well and are inexpensive."

Each buggy costs about $5,000, which is many times less than foreign competitors, he said.

Sadyk is set to send his 100th buggy to the front.

"We are constantly thinking about how to help our soldiers and speed up the process," said Sadyk.

Winning with creativity

Sadyk's buggies are just one of the many innovations being used by Ukrainian forces as the invasion enters the start of its fifth month.

Since Moscow rolled tanks into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, thousands have been killed and millions have fled.

This is not the first time innovation has sprung from the front lines, according to Andrey Tarasov, a historian at Kryvyi Rih State University.

"During war, non-standard tasks arise and non-standard solutions are needed," he said. "When you don't have as much artillery, you have to win with creativity and creative tactics."

Ukraine's war effort is benefitting from certain legacies that Moscow unwittingly gave to the Soviet empire.

Like all the Central Asian states, Ukraine retained conscription even after the Soviet Union ended, meaning that it has a large population of men with military experience.

In addition, Ukraine has a substantial aircraft-manufacturing industry, which created a pool of engineers and skilled workers able to retool in wartime. Uzbekistan manufactured planes from 1941 to 2015. Its workers still make aircraft parts and repair planes.

With Ukraine directing all its efforts at repelling the Russian invasion, ordinary citizens are doing whatever they can to help.

Roman Kulchytskyi, manager of an electric bike manufacturer in Ternopil province, has also been busy.

"For 10 years, we have been making various electric road bikes, but when the war began, we were shocked and felt desperate," he said.

"But then we remembered our military version that was just lying in a warehouse because ... nobody was interested in it."

"We donated it to the war effort and received a bunch of orders and positive feedback."

The company revamped the model specifically for the military: it gave the bike a khaki paint job and removed unnecessary parts, such as mirrors and lights.

"There are many electric bikes in the world, but you won't find a design like ours anywhere else," Kulchytskyi said. "Plus, ours are very powerful. Foreign models can't go 25km per hour, but ours go 90km. Our motor is rated at 3kW, while others are only 250W."

These bikes are very popular among reconnaissance units -- they dash into the forest and quickly return, according to Kulchytskyi.

The e-bike also doubles as a power bank on wheels.

"It is indeed a big battery. Soldiers use it as a power source, for example. In addition to USB [universal serial bus] charging, the military version has a 220V outlet."

"Our bikes are compact and weigh very little. You can just throw them on a tank and take them with you," Kulchytskyi said.

'Invisibility' cloaks, borscht

Clothing designers and chefs also are helping Ukrainian soldiers.

One invention, the Cupol ("Dome") cloak, has been helping Ukrainian troops stay hidden by shielding them from thermal cameras.

The cloaks block thermal radiation and can enable a sniper to remain in place for three to four days.

"Similar cloaks are made abroad, but they cost $2,000 each and are not freely available because they are made specifically for NATO forces," said Olena Masorina, a representative of Ukraine World Volunteering Hundred, a Ukrainian NGO that assists the armed forces and is handling the Cupol project.

"For us, each cloak costs about $500 to make."

"Two young women who used to sew insulated suits invented this item," she said.

"All the materials are purchased in the West. They are sewn into a single fabric to achieve special thermal properties."

"This combination of materials protects a person by making him [or her] entirely invisible to [drones] and night-vision devices, because it does not allow heat to pass through."

Meanwhile, dried borscht is keeping troops fed.

Anna Yankovets worked at a consulting company in Kyiv before she invented her own exclusive dried version of borscht, Ukraine's most famous soup.

"If people are in the trenches, then they don't have time to cook. I started searching for a way to make everyone's favorite borscht without cooking and came up with this idea," she said.

Yankovets dries all of the vegetable ingredients and partially grinds them up.

After a cook adds dried meat or sausages, he or she divides the mixture into vacuum-packed bags.

Soldiers can rehydrate the borscht with hot water when it is time to eat.

"The result is a very hearty borscht. It's quick and delicious," Yankovets said.

At first, Yankovets prepared her dried borscht mixes in a friend's kitchen. But when more orders arrived each day, she relocated first to a kindergarten, then to a fitness centre and finally to the kitchen of an old restaurant.

"We've been using the dehydrators from the whole province. We asked for them," she said.