The App That's Changing the Front Line (United24) | This Week’s Toonie

本站添加: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Today's episode is a little different.

[00:00:02]This week Tuny had the opportunity to speak with Yuri, the product manager of the United 24 app, and Andrew, the content manager of the project. The app allows supporter to support drone units from the Drone Line Initiative. In this interview, we talked about how the app works, why it was created, the idea behind the Drone Line, because modern drone warfare is changing the battlefield in Ukraine. Let's get into it. Hello Yuri and hello Andrew. Glad you guys are here today so we can talk about the app you guys made. Please for Hello. Hello. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

[00:00:41]Okay, please for those who don't know yet, what is the United 24 app? Explain it simply maybe in few sentences.

[00:00:50]Yeah, okay, let me cover this one. The United 24 app is a fast, convenient, and only one official app to directly support Ukrainian combat units.

[00:01:03]And the app raise funds for five UAV operating units participating in the Drone Line Initiative. It's the most effective units that proves their like effectiveness.

[00:01:16]>> [laughter] >> In the in the combats, it's like in three sentences.

[00:01:22]And how does this app work? What are their core functionalities?

[00:01:27]Okay, I can I share the screen with prepared some slides. As you can see from my slides, the app is a bridge between the donors where the donors can directly support these five units from the Drone Line.

[00:01:43]And people don't just support the army, they become a strong courier for the defenders and stay connected. And not only emotional, but also like physical when they see those videos in the app, they can feel feel that even if they are many thousand kilometers away from the front line.

[00:02:06]And you can see what you get in the app when after after sign up.

[00:02:14]So, we started from the home page where we can find all of them. Let me start the video from the beginning. Find the stories, fundraisers, and you can open the stories, check each story from the brigade, leave the comment, like the story, etc. And you can see the donate button here, so you can choose which brigade you want to donate and make it in a few clicks. Then we also introduce statistics.

[00:02:51]So, you can check all of your donations that you made lifetime by period or by the units. You can see some stats about average donation amount or your donations for this particular period. As well, you can click on any donation in the list and get your receipt or repeat your donation. So, it's super convenient for the users.

[00:03:19]Then we have the leaderboard.

[00:03:21]We have the leaderboard for the users and the leaderboard for the countries.

[00:03:27]And on this page you also can see the ranks. So, it's like some achievements that users will obtain during the donation.

[00:03:37]So, more active they are, the higher their rank. And also they can choose the country they live in and to join the leaderboard for the countries.

[00:03:50]Then we have like almost the most part in our app is subscription. Uh so the user can start a recurring donation or subscription, you name it. And you can see on the screen all the active subscriptions the user have and cancelled one. So you can like do it as I said in a few clicks, like click donate, choose that you want to support our unit monthly, choose amount you want to donate monthly and click to pay.

[00:04:24]Then recently we introduced uh achievements. It's uh some type of virtual awards the users can get during the donation of using the the app. So you can see some some examples of them, like donate three times to to one unit, donate three times for another unit, subscribe for the unit, and we add a lot more during during the process. So currently we have nine of them.

[00:04:55]Okay. And really special part, we will soon like in a few days launch this big update with a special events where you can get some unique gifts from the unit, like challenge coins uh that you see on the screen, or some other other gifts. When you participate in this event, uh you can see your personal goals. You support the unit, like share this event with a friend, comment stories, etc. And when you complete all the goals, you can receive those digital coins and can compete with other users for the physical ones. So they are limited. We have only 24 coins for this event uh for our first event from the Phoenix unit.

[00:05:49]So, it's really unique and valuable.

[00:05:54]Uh and if we want to summarize what we have in the in the app, it's only one official app that you can find in the app stores for donation and for for donation for Ukraine.

[00:06:09]And we introduce five units from the Drone Line initiatives and users can directly support these five elite UAV units.

[00:06:19]We have a ranking donation, we have statistics, we have a leaderboard, uh users and countries, we have both.

[00:06:27]And we introduce achievements and coins and soon we'll see uh special events.

[00:06:34]So, when this video will be published, you can participate in the special event and receive these cool gifts from the unit.

[00:06:45]And some metrics or statistics for our for our app. We have a global community of users and you can see from the map uh the most active countries, of course, is United States.

[00:06:59]So, this this ranking is by um number of active accounts in our app.

[00:07:06]So, United States have the most, then we we have Ukraine with more than 6 thousand accounts.

[00:07:13]Then Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, etc. And if we talking about uh the about donations, uh yeah, United States uh has the first place as well.

[00:07:28]And uh then we have Germany, United Kingdom, and Ukraine on the fifth place.

[00:07:33]Sorry, I see China there relatively high in the rank list. Uh I was not I was not expecting that.

[00:07:42]>> [laughter] >> There are many people, yes.

[00:07:45]There are many people, but still Yeah, not so like so many. Yeah, I live in Switzerland.

[00:07:53]>> accept the nations all around the world.

[00:07:55]>> [laughter] >> I live in Switzerland and I have an account I have donated two times so far and I have set my country to my country of origin, so it's Bosnia.

[00:08:08]I guess there is other people who have done it this way, too.

[00:08:12]Yeah.

[00:08:12]>> Okay.

[00:08:14]It's it's voluntary.

[00:08:16]People can choose their country in the profile like what we what they want.

[00:08:24]It's not obligation. It can be the country of origin, the country where they are currently living. So, it's on their side.

[00:08:33]And we have some metrics for the app.

[00:08:37]We raised almost 1.3 million dollars for since the launch of the app.

[00:08:45]We have 20 more than 20 2K active accounts and accepted donations from 76 plus countries.

[00:08:56]Amazing.

[00:08:57]Yeah. And QR code for for your community so they download the app and join and we can move on to the next questions.

[00:09:10]My next question would be when did the idea for this app came to you? What was the specific problem you were trying to solve?

[00:09:19]Well, well, I joined the team in 2025, but the idea itself appeared in 2023.

[00:09:28]And at that moment Ukraine was trying to search for the most efficient way to support Ukrainian military because in 2022 when the full scale invasion began there everything was pretty chaotic at that time because alongside the regular regular army a lot of volunteer initiatives appeared and businesses and people especially abroad they they were trying to help them in many ways so the idea behind the app was pretty simple is to create a simple clear platform where the people could help Ukrainian the most the most effective Ukrainian drone units so yeah and I believe I believe we've made an amazing job and I I really proud of what we've done One question one thing that interests me those funds that are donated are they for drones strictly or are they for different needs of these units They are for different needs it could be drones some ground vehicles for logistics can be some drone parts it can be AV EV like electronic warfare you units so you actually can check some of our sorry I'll share it again some of the recent buys on our landing page so it's a official website of the United 24 you can click United 24 app in the header of the website and scroll down to see the section with the purchases and you can see like the last purchase was check lunar interceptor drones with 29 units and like this ground vehicles is me called me five units of them chuika drone detectors it's equipment yeah or charging hubs 120 units DJI Mavic drones, uh anti-drone electronic EV like systems, uh 13 units. So, the units can choose what they uh what they have like what what are their current needs and buy what is the most needed now. Many compare this app to Only Fans, like on Only Fans for the military, especially because of the exclusive content that one can find in the in the app in form of videos. Are you truly the first one to create such an app, or is there an analog somewhere in the world?

[00:12:10]Uh um I think people make that comparison because of the subscription model itself, because people people subscribe to a particular model or or military units, and they get an exclusive um an exclusive content.

[00:12:28]We make a joke ourselves about it from time to time, but if we speak seriously, it's completely different story, because I believe that probably the uh the biggest difference is our audience and their motivations. Only Fans users, they they they pay their money and they wait something in return for themselves, while while our users the main motivation of our users is to help Ukraine. Of course, they won't see their impact and how their support helps Ukrainian military, but the intention behind it is completely different. And I believe we we we work really hard. Secondly, I believe we we work really hard to create a community around the app, Ukrainian-centered community around the app, community where people could feel um Um, could feel um motivated like And around some good cause like Yeah, yeah, could feel close to each to each other and communicate and and maybe maybe it sounds maybe it will sound weird or at least strange but we want them to feel like digital vets like like like they go through this war with our soldiers and and with us. So I don't think Godly funds is trying to to reach anything like that.

[00:14:02]Um Of course that was not really serious comparison but of course same like our small community like their main interest is to help and to see that their help really is doing something like to see that their efforts or funds are going to the to where it's intended and and that it really helps. What can you tell us about the development process? Was it difficult to create this to arrange all these functions and what were the biggest challenges in creating this?

[00:14:38]Mhm, I'll take this one.

[00:14:41]The development process wasn't easy because our work is regulated by Ukrainian law and App Store guidelines at the same time. So we face both legal and technical limitations that also affected our product decisions.

[00:15:00]And we have and we have these limitations by this time as well but we did everything we could to launch the app in the stores and make sure all of the donations reach the military units.

[00:15:14]So big thanks to everyone who helped and everyone involved in this process specially thanks to our engineering team. Uh during the development process, the launch, uh the support of the app.

[00:15:31]So, it was really important.

[00:15:34]And how long has this app been active now? And what major changes or improvements have you noticed since then?

[00:15:42]Mhm.

[00:15:43]Uh I also take this one.

[00:15:45]Uh we launched at the end of the August 2025.

[00:15:51]So, the app uh has been live for around 9 months now. And since uh the launch, we have released more than 15 updates, 17 if we specific. And one of the biggest updates wa- was a story comments uh we added to the app allowing the donors to leave messages of support to the units and be able to communicate with each other.

[00:16:19]Uh we also updated the leaderboard, added country ranking as you seen from the slides, introduced achievements, and so on.

[00:16:29]And uh one important thing, we also ran a user survey and received around 1,000 responses in a very short time from both Ukrainian and foreign audience.

[00:16:45]And the users highlighted the simple user-friendly design that makes it easy to make donations and starting and subscribing and starting recurring donation.

[00:16:56]They feel like some motivation of competing, which is uh which each other is a leaderboard, and uh having their like full donation history in one place in statistics as I mentioned before. So, answering this question, uh we have noticed a lot of improvements, and the users uh and our users they say that they are happy to donate more and more and subscribe to the to our units. And one of the improvement or no like that we have noticed, we have 10% of subscribers that have five active subscriptions simultaneously. It's our current limit for users. So the user can have five subscriptions, one per each unit. And 10% of our subscribers have all of them.

[00:17:50]Okay.

[00:17:51]Is there other patterns that you have noticed from the data from the app about the users?

[00:17:58]Yeah, we noticed a few patterns.

[00:18:02]As I said before, we ran a survey and um we tried to to find what is the main motivation for users to donate, like to make the those first donation, to make the second donation, etc. And from the user feedback, we found that people most often mention like a few key motivations like for the first donation. The main one is the feeling of supporting Ukraine, like it's a good cause. We want to donate to those projects.

[00:18:39]Like the next one is like by importance, yeah. We rank them by importance. The next one is trust in United 24 as official platform.

[00:18:51]So United 24 app is a part of United 24 platform, so they like the naming is well-known, it's a brand and people want to donate to United 24.

[00:19:07]And the last but not the least, it's like transparent because people want to see how their money works on the front line.

[00:19:17]Uh, that's why we regularly publish uh procurement reports. We publish all of the purchases that unit makes uh made and we see the activity of the users when this video came alive. They leave the comments, they like, they donate more when they see these reports.

[00:19:41]And of course, one more factor for donation we noticed uh is uh the gratitude of from the units. It can be done in any form. It can be said by words, like we they record the video like thank you for those people like and they show the nicknames >> [laughter] >> uh on the paper. So, yeah, um our users really grateful for this kind of content.

[00:20:12]Yes, and also they are very efficient units all of them like we see many good results from all of them like doing uh doing immense work.

[00:20:22]So, I see.

[00:20:23]>> Yeah, they are super efficient.

[00:20:25]Yes. And uh how else do you keep uh subscribers engaged?

[00:20:32]What type of content have you noticed resonates the most with the users? Uh I believe I believe honesty work works the best. Uh I I remember the the first video that the first videos that we received from the brigades and they put a lot of effort into them uh and it was great but but um those videos they looked like uh Hollywood movies uh and with with good camera with good cameras and and lightning and such and such scenes and and we'd tell to the boys that guys we we don't need you to shoot a movie and we you don't have to be an action movie heroes. We just we just want you we just show your real life and we we want to people see you as you are and we are really believe that that type of content is our users would appreciate the the most and actually we were right because some videos with from combat missions could be could perform really well but sometimes just simple video with ordinary military life or you just some jokes between the soldiers could perform as good as well. And sometimes cute videos works well and procurement reports works really well.

[00:22:01]So so so actually we have variety of content that our users love but I believe that the ordinary military life videos perform the best.

[00:22:17]Yes, so people like realness and to connect to connect on the human side with the soldiers with the main people of this war who are uh who are doing the hard work. And in your opinion, why should people download this app United 24 app and why should they support Ukraine in this way?

[00:22:36]Just just try it. I mean I mean we did our best to to create a simple and transparent app to to help Ukrainian military and if you find if you find it important for any reason, I mean helping Ukrainian military, just just try it because I believe the easiest way to to to help Ukrainian military.

[00:23:00]And I'll add some more one more reason for that.

[00:23:06]First of all, like the app is super convenient, easy to use, and you can make donations, start a subscription in a few clicks. And people say that in the feedback, they like the app. And we have super low like payment failure rate. So, you will be sure that when you donate in, you will avoid all the technical errors and so on.

[00:23:33]It's a some some important stuff for our users as well.

[00:23:38]And of course, all the donations go directly to the military units without delays. And the funds used for the most important needs. The units themselves, they know what is the most important for them now, what they need, and they spend all all the funds for that stuff.

[00:23:59]Okay. Yes, uh that's that sounds good. On the app specifically, what key results have you achieved so far? Did you achieve your result that you have set before starting this app?

[00:24:14]Mhm. Let Let me take this one. Our initial goal was um just to launch the app and fix all the bugs that we noticed during the launch and gather the feedback from the users and understand what works well and what not. And yeah, we successfully passed this stage. We currently live for around 9 months.

[00:24:37]And I shared some of the statistics in the slides, what we have what we have reached during that time, like almost 1.3 million dollars, um more than 24,000 accounts.

[00:24:50]Um but I will add one more about our subscriptions.

[00:24:56]Uh we have around 1,000 donors that uh are active subscribers and in total they have more than 1,500 subscriptions worth around 44k dollars.

[00:25:12]And uh for us it's really important because uh subscriptions are super valuable for the units because the war is continuous and they constantly need some funds to purchase the needed equipment.

[00:25:28]So, releasing the app later but with a with a subscription model included was definitely the right decision at the start. Yes.

[00:25:39]But uh people can freely uh go on the app donate any donate any amount like like there is other options too.

[00:25:49]I I'm not sure if we have mentioned that.

[00:25:52]Mhm. Yeah, our app is free of charge so they can use it without donating if they have no funds.

[00:26:01]>> I mean they can make a donation uh how it's called a single donation, a one-time donation.

[00:26:07]>> they can they can make a one-time donation, yeah, for for the amount they want or they can like to choose uh to support monthly.

[00:26:20]So, on the payment page they they like click the toggle like I want to support monthly and this donation converts from one time to the recurring donation.

[00:26:32]Yes.

[00:26:33]Yes, any kind of combinations are possible like one can make three subscriptions with three units and uh also also send additionally single donation uh Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:46]>> Maybe if someone won a lottery or uh gets some money that wants to share with the defenders.

[00:26:54]>> Yeah. As I mentioned, we have a limitation like five active subscription per user. So, they can have one subscription for each unit. One active subscription. And um even if they have all the five subscriptions at once, they can continue donating one time. So, making those single donations for the amount they want.

[00:27:20]So, it's no limitation for one-time donations.

[00:27:24]Yeah.

[00:27:26]Okay. And about future now, what are your plans for the future with the app? Do you plan to expand its features?

[00:27:35]Yes. Um we have very ambitious plans and um really huge backlog of features and ideas. Uh yeah.

[00:27:47]>> [laughter] >> Uh because we gather a lot of feedback from the user. We have some feedbacks from the app stores. We have feedbacks from directly from the app. We We run a survey. We gather the feedback like from all of the place, from analytics and so on. Um and I already showed uh some of the upcoming functionality in the slides uh about special events. Uh we will launch them in a few days. And in the special events, user can receive gifts from the military units. As well as these unique limited edition challenge coins. The first coin will be from the Phoenix unit.

[00:28:32]And currently we are working on email sign-in. So, people without Google or Apple account can use our app, register, create like create account, and use it.

[00:28:45]We want to do that because we received some feedback on our support page that people like want to use it, but they don't have like Google account.

[00:28:54]Uh on on Android devices, we have like only sign up option is Google account.

[00:28:59]Um Yeah, so we want to add one one more methods for sign up. And also our plans include uh new ways to communicate with the units.

[00:29:13]Uh we want to create this like official accounts for the military units inside the app, so they can answer the question, like communicate with with our community.

[00:29:26]We want to add um notification center with a flexible setting. So, so currently, users can like choose between two options or turn on notification or turn off them.

[00:29:40]Um but, on Android, they are more flexible, and we want to add like a well-designed communication center with this bell icon, you know it, yeah, in inside the app. So, users can see all the the history of all of all of the notifi- notifications, and uh choose what they want to receive, like it's it will be very flexible. If they want to uh use some story updates, they will receive only those updates. If they want to participate in the special events, they can click uh it on the setting, and there will be also involved in these activities. And uh we also want to launch public user profiles with some stats, so other users can like see this, uh click on the user, see see its profile, how many achievements maybe they they get, or maybe their reputation, how many likes do they receive from the comments, etc. And um Yeah, yeah. The the near-term plans, short-term plans.

[00:30:54]It's many many plans.

[00:30:56]Yeah, good luck with with all these steps and future plans.

[00:31:01]I would like to add one more. I would like to see a game inside like a drone game where people could play.

[00:31:10]>> [laughter] >> We have some restrictions there, so so uh >> Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Looking forward how it will further develop, but main thing is works now and it helps the war effort, the defense effort already and we can help this way. Yeah, [clears throat] for sure.

[00:31:28]Thank you for sharing these insights in the app with us. And one more question. What would you like to say to the people who are still hesitating to install the app?

[00:31:41]Oh.

[00:31:43]Um As I as I said previously, just just just try it. As I said, this this really this really easy to install and help Ukrainian military. So as I said, if you find it important for any reason, just just try it.

[00:32:04]Yeah.

[00:32:05]I mean, I I I I could share the the one story in this case. Maybe it maybe it will help decide.

[00:32:13]Not long Yeah.

[00:32:16]Not long time ago, for example, um one of one of our our units, Phoenix unit, they purchased a Tsyklon drone detectors with the help of donation through the app. And recently those drone detectors saves the soldier's life during the mission. And we share this story in the app because because it's it's an amazing it's an incredible level of direct impact of the users. So so when you install this app you will probably see this this this level of impact and you will know that you you definitely will help to save the lives of soldiers or you would help them somehow to defend the country or something.

[00:33:06]I have seen I have seen it has like monthly stats from each unit. Is it Is it true like every month they update their stats or is it just occasionally? I'm not sure. I just saw some of you.

[00:33:22]>> we do it we do it every month because we we monitoring the statistics and such stuff. So we monitoring it and we share this for our users so they they feel impact also. Yes, it has it has good content. I recommend everyone to to check the content like these stats and the videos that are coming from the units. Also information about units and their work.

[00:33:52]Okay, thank you for being here and explaining this app for our community. I hope many will join us this Tuesday.

[00:34:02]Thank you. Thank you for having us. We And that was our conversation with Andrew and Yuri from the United 24 app.

[00:34:09]One thing that is very clear is that modern warfare is changing very fast and drone units have become one of the most important elements of Ukraine's defense.

[00:34:20]Especially now while Russia continues to launch massive missile and drone attacks against [music] Ukrainian cities and civilians, Ukrainian drone units are fighting back every day and night. And this week 20 Tuesday is going big.

[00:34:34]Together with United 24 we are supporting five drone units from the drone line initiative. Achilles, one of Ukraine's most battle-tested drone formations operating across some of the hottest sectors of the war.

[00:34:50]K2, specialists in reconnaissance and strike operations helping stop Russian advances through position drone warfare.

[00:34:59]Magura Birds, one of the most recognized UAV units in Ukraine carrying out frontline and deep strike operation against Russian forces.

[00:35:10]Rarog, a unit focused on FPV strikes, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare on some of the toughest fronts of the war.

[00:35:19]And Phoenix, one of the leading unmanned system formations of the Ukrainian Border Guard Service responsible for thousands of destroyed enemy targets.

[00:35:30]Through the United 24 app, you can directly support one unit or more or all five. You can make a one-time donation or become a long-term supporter through monthly subscriptions while receiving exclusive content from the units themselves. And this week the units are also giving something back.

[00:35:49]Five supporters, one for each unit, will receive a special gift directly from the defenders they supported.

[00:35:56]Every tuny means a chance. The more tunies you donate, the higher your chances. Starting now and running through the end of tuny Tuesday, every subscription on the app will count toward the units giveaways. Links are in the description and in the pinned comment below. Download your app, choose your unit, and then support the frontline. And as always, every tuny has a story and every story brings us closer to victory.