Snake Island Institute hosted Defense Cooperation Forum in Los Angeles.
In the heart of America’s defense tech manufacturing, we brought together US defense tech manufacturers, investors and military representatives with Ukrainian military end users and defense tech companies for a closed and honest conversation on the challenges and opportunities in defense tech innovation.
Our main goal is to connect those who build, those who invest, and those who fight, so that together we can build the arsenal of freedom — faster, smarter, and stronger than our enemies expect.
Expert-led panels formed the backbone of a deeper understanding of modern warfare:
▪️ Drone Technology & Tactics
Speakers: “Nick”, “Erick”, Viktoriia Honcharuck (“Tori”), Vlad Sobolevskyi, Catarina Buchatskiy
▪️ Building the Defense Industrial Base
Speakers: Justin Zeefe, Eveline Buchatskiy, Oleksii Markhovskyi
▪️ Unmanned Systems and Asymmetric Maritime Warfare
Speakers: Maryna Hrytsenko, Catarina Buchatskiy
After that we had a showcase of U.S. and Ukrainian companies where they received end-user feedback from the Ukrainian active-duty soldiers.
Closed sessions created a protected space to develop mutual understanding:
Military-to-Military — Ukrainian soldiers + U.S. officers/DoD
Investors — U.S. and Ukrainian VCs, Ukrainian industry/company representatives
End Users Deep-Dive — Select U.S. companies + VCs in small groups with Ukrainian soldiers
Snake Island Institute works to show Ukraine not only as a recipient of Western systems, but as a source of combat-proven innovation that strengthens allied capabilities.
A special thank you to our partners for making it possible: Neros, THE BR-DGE, D3, Picogrid, Initialized, El Segundo
