A hobby turned into a military simulator business. Now, it saves lives of Ukrainian soldiers

The love of paint and laser shooting sports helped Yurii Lavrenov and Mykhailo Obod, both from the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, build a global business selling laser tag equipment.

And Ukraine’s urgent need to train thousands of soldiers in real warfare gave impetus to the development of tactical training systems.

Thanks to military simulators designed by Skiftech, a Kharkiv company, Ukraine has managed to reduce the number of fatalities on the battlefield by a third. Its military simulators are now available at every training ground in the country, Skiftech’s founders say.