Ukrainian military unveils its own AI system, Marichka
Ukraine’s Central Research Institute of the Armed Forces has presented an intelligent information system called Marichka, designed to help commanders analyze large volumes of data more quickly when making battlefield decisions, according to hromadske’s correspondent.
Institute head Yuriy Kliat said the system was created to reduce the time military officers need to process data required for decision-making.
“At this stage, commanders at the higher level — brigade headquarters, army corps, grouping of troops — need from 6 to 12 hours to make a decision on one or another type of combat action. … It is a painstaking process and requires major use of human resources,” he said.
Marichka was developed along the lines of ChatGPT, but as a military system with closed circuits. According to the developers, it will allow information to be collected centrally, automatically calculate the balance of forces and assets, provide a commander with options and model those options.
Military officials stressed that the system does not make decisions and does not take over the authority of a commander. The final decision will still remain with people.
“A commander spends about six hours, and with the help of this system these questions can be resolved in minutes. You understand that under today’s conditions of warfare, with their speed and rapid change of situation, those six hours can become fatal and critical. And a decision made according to old standards will not correspond to reality,” Kliat said.
For now, Marichka remains a pilot project being tested at the institute. The prototype was built using open-source information, does not yet operate in a restricted official-use environment, and is being tested on training data in a small structure run by a Ukrainian provider without using official classified information.
The name Marichka was chosen after discussion as part of a search for a “patriotic name.”
Military officials also said artificial intelligence has already been actively integrated into modern weapons — including drones, weapon control systems, and systems for collecting and planning information.
“We have an understanding of the complete architecture of combat iteration up to the strategic level. It is not just a drone with AI or something at the radar level — it is a fully implemented architecture at every level,” they said.
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