WEBVTT 00:00.563 --> 00:05.269 The war in Ukraine continues to smolder without any significant gains for either side. 00:05.269 --> 00:07.803 "What's that all about?" you might ask. 00:07.803 --> 00:11.013 "Is it really true that neither side in the war has the upper hand?" 00:11.013 --> 00:13.253 "Or is that actually the intention?" 00:13.253 --> 00:19.573 This program examines the question of which parties might have an interest in seeing the war continue. 00:19.573 --> 00:25.433 After all, the people who are suffering are certainly not interested in seeing the war drag on. 00:25.433 --> 00:32.640 That's how Kla.TV received a plea for help from a Ukrainian citizen who, for many reasons, finds the war very strange. 00:32.640 --> 00:37.592 Among other things, he asks why attacks often target civilian infrastructure and why, above all, the 00:37.592 --> 00:41.124 civilian population suffers the consequences of the war. 00:41.124 --> 00:47.643 At the same time, he asks why Ukraine’s strategically important military targets have been largely spared and 00:47.643 --> 00:54.485 why, apparently, no villas belonging to government officials in Kyiv have been hit by attacks. 00:54.485 --> 00:57.445 Ordinary people are among the losers. 00:57.445 --> 01:00.789 Nevertheless, there are also parties that profit from the war. 01:00.789 --> 01:07.160 Among the winners in this situation are certainly defense technology companies such as Palantir and Anduril. 01:07.160 --> 01:12.767 They can further develop their technologies in data processing and autonomous weapon systems under 01:12.767 --> 01:17.073 real-world combat conditions and then bring them to market. 01:17.073 --> 01:26.371 For example, Palantir CEO Alex Karp was the first executive of a major U.S. technology company to travel to Kyiv to meet with 01:26.371 --> 01:31.273 President Zelenskyy after the conflict broke out in June 2022. 01:31.273 --> 01:36.319 Since then, the Gotham software has been used in combat and continues to be developed. 01:36.319 --> 01:42.986 Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov confirmed that his armed forces are using 01:42.986 --> 01:46.885 Palantir software to plan attacks on Russia. 01:46.885 --> 01:53.967 Palantir, in collaboration with the Ukrainian Army, has developed an AI-based system to analyze and 01:53.967 --> 01:58.495 process intelligence and military reconnaissance data. 01:58.495 --> 02:03.918 The data collected from the battlefield is used to train AI models and develop systems capable of 02:03.918 --> 02:07.263 detecting targets even under difficult conditions. 02:07.263 --> 02:12.983 In addition, the stock value of both Palantir and Anduril has risen by several 02:12.983 --> 02:16.945 hundred percent over the past two to three years. 02:16.945 --> 02:25.649 Anduril specializes in the development of autonomous weapons systems and is also testing its products in Ukraine. 02:25.649 --> 02:31.805 Drawing on its experiences from the war in Ukraine, Palantir has further developed the “Maven Smart System.” 02:31.805 --> 02:41.258 It is an AI-powered system that automatically analyzes data from military intelligence and identifies targets for attacks. 02:41.258 --> 02:48.264 In Ukraine, this reduced the time from target detection to attack from hours to minutes. 02:48.264 --> 02:53.069 On the Palantir blog, under the heading “What’s Next?”, you can read: 02:53.069 --> 02:55.664 "The industry is ready and willing. 02:55.664 --> 03:02.453 "NATO must continue to create opportunities—both through exercises and events …" 03:02.453 --> 03:06.622 What could be more suitable than a real battlefield? 03:06.622 --> 03:14.672 In 2023, Ukraine launched “Brave1,” an innovation platform for defense technology. 03:14.672 --> 03:20.104 The goal is to support Ukrainian and international companies, startups, and developers 03:20.104 --> 03:23.364 in the development of military technologies. 03:23.364 --> 03:31.880 "Brave1 Dataroom" enables companies to train and further develop AI models using real-world data from the war in Ukraine. 03:31.880 --> 03:36.078 Funding is provided for “innovation competitions” in the following areas: 03:36.078 --> 03:42.560 Drone defense, electromagnetic attack and defense systems, autonomous weapon systems. 03:42.560 --> 03:47.968 One area of focus, for example, is the automatic detection of Russian drones. 03:47.968 --> 03:53.801 The smoldering war in Ukraine keeps the specter of the Russian threat alive, because without that threat, there 03:53.801 --> 03:57.943 would be no sense of urgency for high military spending. 03:57.943 --> 04:03.031 Once a peace agreement is reached, defense budgets would have to be cut, and orders placed with defense 04:03.031 --> 04:06.529 contractors would have to be postponed or canceled. 04:06.529 --> 04:11.743 This would certainly have a significant negative impact on these companies' stock prices. 04:11.743 --> 04:16.219 The major shareholders in most defense contractors are BlackRock and Vanguard. 04:16.219 --> 04:21.759 So it's no surprise that Friedrich Merz, the former chairman of the supervisory board of BlackRock Germany, is 04:21.759 --> 04:25.350 fueling the war in Ukraine rather than de-escalating it. 04:25.350 --> 04:32.949 Shortly before the German Armed Forces placed a major order, BlackRock, for example, increased its stake in Rheinmetall. 04:32.949 --> 04:37.249 The weapons systems of the future are being developed and tested in Ukraine. 04:37.249 --> 04:43.569 However, it’s not just weapons that are being tested; the “Diia” project is also being used to roll out the digital government. 04:43.569 --> 04:47.682 Diia is the Ukrainian government's central digital platform. 04:47.682 --> 04:54.202 Citizens can use numerous government services online and manage documents digitally. 04:54.202 --> 04:59.910 Since all the information a person generates through their daily activities is available in digital 04:59.910 --> 05:03.451 form, it can be analyzed and categorized using AI. 05:03.451 --> 05:07.300 Palantir has now made its way into Diia as well. 05:07.300 --> 05:12.248 It will be a piece of cake for the government to exercise total control over its citizens. 05:12.248 --> 05:18.145 According to Valeriya Ionan, an advisor to Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, the war has 05:18.145 --> 05:24.685 actually accelerated digital transformation in the civilian sector rather than slowing it down. 05:24.685 --> 05:31.953 Palantir software has become the backbone of the Ukrainian army and seems likely to become that of the Ukrainian state as well. 05:31.953 --> 05:35.775 This represents a monopoly on power virtually without precedent. 05:35.775 --> 05:40.703 Is Ukraine on its way to becoming a technocratic state, as advocated by Peter 05:40.703 --> 05:44.767 Thiel, the co-founder and co-owner of Palantir? 05:44.767 --> 05:52.088 The program “The Peter Thiel File” , it is explained how Palantir, the technology company co-founded by Peter Thiel, 05:52.088 --> 05:57.642 provides systems that lay the technical groundwork for an increasingly comprehensive and 05:57.642 --> 06:01.362 potentially totalitarian surveillance state. 06:01.362 --> 06:06.087 But Ukraine is not the only country on its way to becoming a technocratic state. 06:06.087 --> 06:12.847 Just as the Russian government fully supported the entire agenda during the COVID-19 crisis—from the Sputnik vaccine, which 06:12.847 --> 06:19.894 caused numerous adverse reactions, to the sanctions—the Kremlin is pulling out all the stops in the war in Ukraine as well. 06:19.894 --> 06:27.298 According to the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies (IEEE) of the Spanish Ministry of Defense, the war in Ukraine is 06:27.298 --> 06:32.806 accelerating the race for technological innovation and making artificial intelligence (AI) 06:32.806 --> 06:37.156 increasingly crucial to future military supremacy. 06:37.156 --> 06:43.979 Such an armed conflict is like a laboratory where major powers and companies in the industry can continuously 06:43.979 --> 06:51.456 train and test AI systems for a wide range of capabilities, functionalities, and applications: 06:51.456 --> 06:57.590 "Moscow is providing Beijing with operational intelligence based on its experiences in this war—and specifically 06:57.590 --> 07:04.210 regarding AI—while China is collaborating with Russia on the development of high-tech military technology." 07:04.210 --> 07:08.331 That is according to the report by the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies. 07:08.331 --> 07:12.365 According to publicly available information, there is as yet no single company in 07:12.365 --> 07:15.673 Russia that is an exact counterpart to Palantir. 07:15.673 --> 07:22.811 Instead, there are several systems and companies that cover different aspects of what Palantir offers. 07:22.811 --> 07:27.275 For example, the Russian defense contractor Rostec develops, among other things, 07:27.275 --> 07:31.247 electronics, software, AI, drones, and military systems. 07:31.247 --> 07:36.763 NtechLab, for its part, specializes in AI-based video analysis, facial recognition, and 07:36.763 --> 07:41.113 the detection of vehicles and license plates. 07:41.113 --> 07:47.111 Russia, too, has extensive digital surveillance and analysis systems; however, these are not concentrated within 07:47.111 --> 07:53.680 a single organization but are distributed among various government and government-affiliated entities. 07:53.680 --> 07:59.773 The Russian counterpart to the Ukrainian digital platform “Diia” is primarily the government 07:59.773 --> 08:03.553 portal “Gosuslugi,” including its mobile app. 08:03.553 --> 08:09.818 Just as Diia is driving the development of the digital government in Ukraine, Gosuslugi plays a similarly 08:09.818 --> 08:14.165 key role in the digitization of the Russian government. 08:14.165 --> 08:20.599 In Russia, too, those who suffer the most are the ones who have no interest in a prolonged war: the people. 08:20.599 --> 08:25.438 While Ukrainian citizens report Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, Russian citizens 08:25.438 --> 08:29.056 also complain about Ukrainian attacks on civilians. 08:29.056 --> 08:35.011 According to an article in Anti-Spiegel, the Ukrainian army is said to have attacked at least 08:35.011 --> 08:38.882 24 civilian buses with drones in July 2026 alone. 08:38.882 --> 08:45.115 Since mid-July 2026, warehouses and logistics centers belonging to the Russian online retailer Wildberries 08:45.115 --> 08:49.452 have also been repeatedly hit by Ukrainian drone attacks. 08:49.452 --> 08:53.762 Wildberries is often referred to as the “Russian Amazon.” 08:53.762 --> 08:56.707 All of this just keeps adding fuel to the fire. 08:56.707 --> 09:01.624 It’s hard to shake the impression that governments are all in this together, working to prolong the war while 09:01.624 --> 09:07.297 simultaneously pushing forward the establishment of a digital, totalitarian state in their own countries. 09:07.297 --> 09:15.156 This seems to be the real reason why people are still dying every day and why all efforts toward peace come to nothing. 09:15.156 --> 09:21.025 That is why it is important to stay alert and recognize the common threads behind these warmongers and AI developments.