Artur Sanglepp: Lessons from the Dnipro
Ukraine's wartime innovation shows how speed, adaptation, and risk-taking drive survival, lessons Estonia must embrace before the floodwaters rise, writes Artur Sanglepp, a sworn lawyer at law firm RASK, who recently visited Kyiv.
In Kyiv, I saw the Dnipro. The Dnipro does not ask permission to flow; it has coursed through the centuries with indifference toward the empires along its banks that once deemed themselves unshakable. It possesses the privilege of time. Ukraine did not have the privilege of time — it was thrown into the rapids: swim or sink. Estonia, on the other hand, stands on the riverbank, where the air is deceptively calm.
This calm is not safety, but the silence before the plunge. Time can function not as a resource, but as a trap, luring you into believing there's plenty of it to make decisions. The routines of peacetime — all just fragile reeds when the flood comes. To imagine that in such a moment one could calmly draw up diagrams is to mistake the river's stillness for the permanence of the situation. The Dnipro whispers: when the waters rise, you won't be building on the water, but under it. Ukraine confirms — the water is already up to the ankles.
Modular shadow generators
A new era has dawned in risk management in almost all areas — insurance and reinsurance, diversification and backups, high-level compliance checks. Ukraine's experience shows that production is increasingly decentralized, concealed and of course modular, so that disruptions in the supply chain don't bring manufacturing to a halt. It appears that the future of defense favors systems that are adaptable and capable of regenerating themselves faster than they can be destroyed.
Skin change
Could a liberalizing reform be seen as a kind of shedding of the state's skin, like a snake sloughing off its old layer — so that something faster, nimbler and more aggressive can emerge from within? Ukraine did just that, because it had no other choice. Improvisation became the norm, speed a doctrine and learning from failure a part of everyday life.
If the Dnipro teaches anything, it's that permanence is an illusion. What endures is what adapts. Innovation driven by the private sector in the field of defense might best be viewed as a civilian-born weapon — one with a unique ability to adjust to changing conditions.
Experimental space
Where in Estonia is the place where the pragmatism of soldiers and the bold ideas of engineers come together in a unified, feedback-driven development process? So far, such a place doesn't exist. In Ukraine, prototypes are born on Monday, tested by Friday, and by Sunday, they're either burning in the sky or inflicting damage on the enemy.
Estonia would benefit from that same rhythm — feedback that is immediate and effective. Calls to establish a defense industry innovation center have already been voiced at several sector events. Remembering the midnight "song" of attack drones, I'll repeat that call here as well.
Artur Sanglepp took part in the Darkstar Bootcamp development event in Ukraine in August, advising participating companies on legal matters.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski
