Everyone talks peace, the war keeps growing. That is why Ukraine tests tomorrow's weapons today

Ukraine is one of the few countries that tests the newest weapons on a real battlefield, every day. We simply have no other choice: for us, victory is an ideology, not a policy option. And the choice is not getting easier. The US talks peace with Russia and with Iran, but to me these talks look like theater: since 2022 the threats have turned into strikes, and the strikes keep growing. Below is that escalation on one timeline, then what it produced: an industry that makes millions of drones a year, and Swarmer (SWMR), the first Ukrainian drone company on Nasdaq.

Talks vs reality

In the first year of US–Russia talks, Russia launched 3.5× as many drones and missiles at Ukraine as in the year before.

18.0k launches in the 12 months before the Riyadh meeting of Feb 18, 2025; 62.8k in the 12 months after. Ukrainian Air Force reports.

875× → 15×

Price per $1 of sales: Swarmer alone, then with Ratel Robotics

$86.6M

Paid upfront to Ratel by the state for robots not yet delivered

+214%

Share price since the $5 IPO in March, but −80% from the June peak

1. Peace talks, more war

Sources: Wikipedia timelines and articles for each event, Axios; Kaggle, Massive Missile Attacks on Ukraine (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Russia went from words to use. In 2022 it put its nuclear forces on alert and annexed four Ukrainian regions; in 2023 it left the last US–Russia nuclear treaty; in November 2024 it lowered its threshold for nuclear use and two days later fired Oreshnik, a missile built to carry nuclear warheads, at Dnipro. By May 2026 it had used Oreshnik three times. Talks did not change the direction: in the first year after the US–Russia meeting in Riyadh, Russia launched 3.5 times as many drones and missiles at Ukraine as in the year before, and May 2026 set a record of 9,881 drones.

US–Iran talks kept ending in bombs. Talks in Oman in April 2025 were followed by Israeli and US strikes in June; talks in Muscat in February 2026, by war three weeks later; a memorandum signed in June 2026 broke after three weeks. China has held six large drills around Taiwan since August 2022, while Western officials reported Chinese parts, and then attack drones, reaching Russia’s army.

2. Why Ukraine

Sources: OSW (2024), Aviation Week (2025 and the 2026 target).

When the war only grows, you build what works, and you build it fast. Ukraine went from about 7 drone makers before the full-scale invasion to roughly 500 today, and drones now cause about 80% of casualties on the front. Venture money followed: from $5 million in 2023 to $105 million in 2025. No lab can copy this. A system that works here has been tested against real jamming, by soldiers who order what works: through the Brave1 market alone, troops ordered 590,000 drones in the first nine months of 2026. Swarmer says drones running its software have flown over 100,000 combat missions since 2023.

3. The price of expectations

Sources: Yahoo Finance (market values and revenue, Oct 5, 2026); Swarmer's 10-Q and merger proxy on SEC EDGAR.

On its own, Swarmer is worth 875 times its sales of the last 12 months ($298 thousand). Even Archer Aviation, an air-taxi company that listed in 2021 with zero revenue, trades at 527×. Small early sales are normal for this kind of company: Joby and Archer had none in their first year on the market, and they are worth $5.8 and $3.6 billion now. Investors are paying for the future, and the share has swung hard: +214% since the IPO, but −80% from its June peak.

Ratel changes the picture. With Ratel’s 2025 sales added, the price falls to about 15×, near Red Cat, a listed maker of military drones. Ratel had $86.6 million of advance payments on its books in June, mostly from the Ukrainian state, for robots not delivered yet. Shareholders vote on the deal on October 30.

So what

Talks have not slowed the war, and the threats around it, from Moscow to Tehran to the Taiwan Strait, have grown. As long as that holds, Ukraine will keep building and testing weapons faster than anyone, and buyers abroad will want what works there. Swarmer is the first way to bet on that on a stock exchange. On its own it is priced like a dream, at 875 times sales. With Ratel, at about 15×, it is a company with real orders and $86.6 million paid upfront. The October 30 vote decides which of the two you are buying.

What the numbers leave out

• Combat claims are the company’s own. The 100,000 missions come from Swarmer’s prospectus and are not independently verified.
• Tiny revenue, few customers. With $298 thousand a year, one contract can change the picture. Swarmer lost $11.8 million in the first half of 2026 and had $25.3 million of cash, about 14 months at that pace, so more share sales (dilution) are likely.
• Ratel depends on one buyer. Government contracts were 86% of its sales in the first half of 2026, mostly Ukrainian defense procurement. Demand follows the war and the budget.
• The deal is not closed. The 15× uses Ratel’s 2025 revenue and needs the October 30 vote. The earnout (up to 4.4 million more shares if Ratel hits revenue targets of $77 million in 2026 and more later) would raise the share count.
• Events are a selection. The timeline shows the threats, strikes and talks we judged most important, each from a linked source; another selection is possible. Around single events there is no clear pattern: after 9 of 18 talks, truces and deadlines, launches rose in the next 30 days, and after the other 9 they fell. The 3.5× compares whole years.
• Launch data. Counts are what the Ukrainian Air Force reports, as collected by volunteers. “Unknown UAV” is counted as a drone. Records before 2024 look incomplete, so the chart starts in 2024. Month-to-month changes have many causes: weather, stockpiles, production, not only diplomacy.
• Prices move. The market values are from the close on October 5, 2026.

Data

Download the datasets: launches_by_month.csv (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), talks_events.csv (18 talks, truces and deadlines, launches 30 days before and after), escalation_events.csv (threats and strikes since 2022), valuation.csv, early_revenue.csv and swmr_price.csv.

Methodology

• Swarmer: IPO price, date and the 100,000-missions claim from the final prospectus (424B4). Revenue, net loss, operating cash flow and cash from the 10-Q for the quarter to June 30, 2026; revenue of the last 12 months is 2025 revenue minus the first half of 2025 plus the first half of 2026 ($297,748). Shares outstanding (16,610,264) from the merger proxy. The cash runway divides cash by the first-half operating cash burn.
• Ratel Robotics: revenue, net income, the government share of sales, advance payments (contract liabilities), deal terms, earnout targets and the vote date from the same merger proxy. “Swarmer + Ratel” adds the 1,064,942 closing shares to the share count and divides by the two companies’ combined 2025 revenue ($18.9 million); it leaves out the earnout shares.
• Price-to-sales: market value ÷ revenue of the last 12 months. Swarmer’s market value is shares × close; peers’ market values and revenue are from Yahoo Finance on October 5, 2026. Share prices from Yahoo Finance. Revenue in the listing year for Joby, Archer, Ondas and Red Cat from their annual reports on SEC EDGAR (Red Cat’s fiscal year ends in April).
• Launches: Massive Missile Attacks on Ukraine (Kaggle, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), based on Ukrainian Air Force reports, to October 3, 2026. Shahed/Geran-type, Lancet, Molniya and all other UAVs (including unknown ones) count as drones; everything else as missiles. Launches, not hits.
• Threats and strikes: each event links to its source in escalation_events.csv: Wikipedia articles on nuclear risk in the war, Oreshnik, the 2022 mobilization, the annexation, North Korean troops, the drones over Poland, Burevestnik, Iran’s strikes on Israel in April and October 2024, the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, the 2026 Iran war, China’s drills around Taiwan (2022, 2023, 2024A, 2024B, 2025A, December 2025) and support for Russia. Where an article gives only the month, the dot sits mid-month.
• Talks: dates from Wikipedia’s timelines of the Russia–Ukraine peace talks and the US–Iran negotiations; the September 5, 2026 meeting from Axios. For each event, launches in the 30 days before and the 30 days after are compared.
• Ukraine’s drone industry: 2024 production from OSW; 2025 production and the 2026 target from Aviation Week; number of makers from Georgetown Security Studies Review; share of casualties from Army Technology; venture funding from Kyiv Post; Brave1 orders from AeroTime.
• Code: plain Python scripts (collect.py, analyze.py). They save every filing locally.
• Trademarks: company names are trademarks of their respective owners. This site is independent and not affiliated with or sponsored by Swarmer, Ratel Robotics or any other company mentioned. This study was produced with Claude, a model made by Anthropic.