In a crisis, the hardest part is rarely the impact itself. It is the first hours that follow. Infrastructure is already strained, communications break down, people do not know where to go, and coordination is only beginning to take shape. That is when the central question is decided: will chaos become unmanageable, or can it be gathered quickly into a clear, workable order of action?
Elvin Krupa has been working on that question for several years. A specialist in civil security, crisis response and humanitarian coordination, he serves as Co-Chair of the Committee on Civil Security and International Cooperation at UADSI, the Ukrainian Association of Defense and Security Industry. He is the author of four registered methodologies covering evacuation management, the use of unmanned systems in humanitarian operations, and countering disinformation in crisis conditions.
His research has appeared in academic journals in Ukraine, Europe and the United States, and he has presented his work at the Parliament of the Czech Republic during the international forum Civil Security and Interaction, held on the Future Forces platform in Prague.
In 2019 he was awarded the medal Defender of the Motherland by decree of the President of Ukraine.
We spoke with him about what actually works when an emergency plan meets reality.
Elvin, civil security sounds like something very governmental. How would you explain this field in plain language?
Civil security is not about fear and it is not about control. It is about clarity and action. When people understand what to do in the first minutes and hours, there is less panic, fewer chaotic decisions, fewer dangerous mistakes. In practical terms it means knowing who makes the decisions, how information is passed on, where the assembly points are, which routes to take, what to do with children, older people and those with limited mobility. In a critical moment the advantage does not belong to whoever is loudest. It belongs to whoever has a working order of action.
You often talk about the first critical hours. Why are they so decisive?
Because those hours set the trajectory for everything that follows. If people act at random at the start, follow rumors and move without any logic, the effect multiplies quickly across thousands of people. But if a simple algorithm appears and the roles are clear, then even with scarce resources and unstable communications you can hold coordination together.
You specialize in evacuation methodologies. What is the most common misconception about evacuation?
Most people picture evacuation as transport logistics. But evacuation is the management of flows of people and information. Who moves where, along which routes, in what waves, how prioritization works, how to ease the bottlenecks, how to avoid dangerous improvised routes. That is coordination, not just transportation.
Your approach is often described as a shift from chaos to organized rescue. What makes it work?
I start from reality: in a crisis there are no ideal conditions. So the approach has to be flexible, without rigid schemes that break at the first failure. I rely on self-organization, decentralization and psychological resilience. This is not a free-for-all. It is a framework of simple rules, short commands and clear roles, so that people can act under uncertainty.
Countering disinformation is also part of your work. Why does that belong to civil security?
Because in a crisis information is a resource. False messages can derail an evacuation, trigger panic, create conflict, push people toward dangerous decisions. That is why information hygiene matters: trusted channels, short verified messages, a clear logic of updates. I call it information resilience, the ability of a community to stay coordinated when there is a great deal of noise around it.
What does that look like in practice?
Usually the simplest approach works best. One or two primary channels, precise wording without ambiguity, consistency, regularity, and alignment between the structures involved. Plus rapid debunking of dangerous rumors, together with an explanation of what is being done right now and why.
You integrate unmanned systems, communications and analytical models. How do you keep technology from becoming an expensive toy?
Technology only works when it is built into a process. If you have a drone but no answer to the questions of who receives the data, how it is verified, who it is passed to and what happens next, then it is just a picture. I treat technology as part of an operational architecture: observation, communications, analytics, data transfer, all of it tied to specific roles and decisions.
Your work includes the AirGuard and UAS-Rescue Grid concept. What is the idea behind it?
It is an approach in which unmanned systems act as a support network for civil and humanitarian missions: route reconnaissance, risk monitoring, search, and rapid data transfer in the first hours. The point is not the drone as a gadget. The point is the model of integration into coordination.
Does any of this apply to Europe, Asia, the United States?
The scenarios differ, but the bottlenecks are remarkably similar. Wildfire evacuation, hurricane response on the coast, an urban power outage, avalanches in the mountains, flooding in small towns: in every case the first hours come down to the same things. Who makes the decision, how information moves, whether people trust what they are told. American emergency management is far better resourced than most of the systems I have worked with, and that is exactly why it makes sense to test decentralized protocols. They are designed for the moment when resources have not reached you yet.
You take part in international conferences and expert discussions. Why does that matter for someone who works in the field?
To calibrate approaches. Crisis scenarios differ from country to country, but the bottlenecks repeat: coordination, logistics, communications, trust, speed of decision. An international professional context lets you test a model and see what holds up in practice and what only looks good on paper.
In your UADSI role you work on cooperation between structures. What is the hardest part of that?
Alignment. Different teams, different working languages, different protocols. The task is to build a bridge between local authorities, international structures and humanitarian organizations: shared rules of interaction, minimal bureaucracy, maximum clarity and accountability.
What matters most to you in this profession?
Trust and clarity. When a society understands what to do and can see the logic behind the decisions, people hold together even in uncertainty. Security is a structure that allows people to act.
