Volunteers from Odesa have revealed new details about how the ePPO system works

The Odessa-based volunteer team "Tekhnari," which has been developing technological solutions for Ukraine's air defense since the start of the full-scale invasion, has announced that the air defense system it developed helped shoot down the first cruise missile just eight days after its launch.

At that time, the app had about 50,000 users. One of the project’s founders,Gennadiy Suldin,discussed this in an interview.

According to the developer, the team began working in the spring of 2022. Initially, volunteers supplied air defense units with the necessary equipment, and later moved on to creating their own technical solutions. One of the first projects was a pair of special binoculars that allowed anti-aircraft gunners to detect cruise missiles a few seconds earlier. Later, the idea arose to create a digital air defense alert system.

According to the developer, the app’s operating principle is as simple as possible: a person who spots or hears an aerial target opens the app and taps the report button. The software then analyzes thousands of such signals, determines the most likely flight path, and helps the military respond more quickly to the threat. The developer noted that the system has now accumulated a massive dataset on air attacks, which is also used for analysis.

He also reported that approximately one million Ukrainians are currently using the civilian version of the air defense system, and the “Flyuger” app, which displays information about the air situation, has about 700,000 users. Meanwhile, the military is working with a closed, professional version of the system.

Over the years of operation, according to the source, the system has learned to automatically filter out false user reports and has withstood several hundred Russian cyberattacks. The developer claims that the last two large-scale attacks were repelled without operator intervention—in automatic mode. However, the project is still not funded by the government and is supported by the team’s own revenue and donations.

In addition to software products, “Tekhnari” is engaged in the development and modernization of equipment for air defense units. According to the team’s founder, more than 550 sets of “Sova” night-vision systems, over 50 “Chaika” training systems, and more than 1,800 portable anti-aircraft missile systems—“Igla,” “Perun,” and Stinger—have been modernized, as well as over 70 “Strela-10” anti-aircraft systems.

During the interview, the developer also stated that the Russian side often copies Ukrainian technical solutions. In his opinion, the main advantage of Ukrainian engineers is their constant collaboration directly with the military, who formulate technical requirements based on real combat experience, allowing developments to be quickly adapted to the needs of the front lines.

The “Tekhnari” Design Bureauis a team of specialist engineers that, since early 2022, has been developing and implementing innovative solutions in the fields of programming, optics, and electronics for the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

Андрій Колісніченко