Executive Summary:
- Russia’s war against Ukraine has shown how drones are reshaping warfare. Drone-saturated battlefields complicate medical evacuation and care, forcing the adoption of ground drones for logistics, casualty extraction, and frontline support under persistent aerial threats.
- Ukraine’s drone manufacturing industry has rapidly grown, producing first-person view (FPV), bomber, interceptor, and AI-enabled systems at scale. Kyiv favors rapidly produced, low-cost weapons over expensive, slow-to-develop systems. Mass production and quick replacement are essential in an attritional conflict.
- Artillery remains useful in Ukraine, while tanks and armored vehicles are increasingly vulnerable to strikes by inexpensive drones. Expensive Western systems often underperform compared to cheaper Ukrainian alternatives.
Russia’s war against Ukraine is demonstrating how new technologies are changing modern warfare. In March, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Valerii Zaluzhnyy wrote for The Telegraph that the United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members need to better prepare for drone warfare (Telegraph, March 21). In June 2024, Ukraine created the first branch of its armed forces dedicated to drones, the Unmanned Systems Forces (Kyiv Independent, June 11, 2024; see EDM, April 2).
Drone warfare leads to more lethal casualties. Increasing and adapting medical services is essential for NATO in preparing for a potential future war. Evacuation of the wounded is more difficult when the sky is saturated with drones, putting medical troops at greater risk, so Ukrainians are using ground drones for evacuations (see EDM, January 26). Ukraine’s ground drones are increasing in importance and conducting 7,000 missions each month, mainly logistical functions and the evacuation of wounded (see EDM, January 26). Approximately 200 Ukrainian companies produce ground drones, with 162 models available for Ukrainian troops on the online Brave 1 platform.
Ukraine’s first drones were built by civilians, including a group of volunteer drone operators, Aerorozvidka, which used hobby drones (The Village Ukraine, September 30, 2022). In February 2023, they began manufacturing first-person view (FPV) drones equipped with grenades (Economist, March 22). Ukraine began using combat drones to hunt Iranian Shahed drones at the same time (Economist, February 8, 2024). It likely produces more drones in one year than all NATO members combined (United24 Media, November 11, 2025). Smaller bomber drones attack infantry, lay mines, and perform logistical functions, while heavier bomber drones carry payloads of tens of pounds and are used against large military equipment and fortifications (UAWire.org, March 31). New, lighter interceptor drones are starting production using composite materials. The Shvidun, for example, weighs only 18 pounds, can fly at 20 feet, reach 155 miles per hour, and has a range of 50 miles (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, March 31).
Ukraine produces a greater number of strike drones than Russia, and of these, more are resistant to electronic warfare (EW). Since December 2025, Ukraine has been killing more Russian troops than are being recruited. According to some Ukrainian sources, in 2025, there were 120–160 Russian casualties for each square mile newly occupied, and in 2026 so far, that rate has doubled. Ukraine is launching about 1,000 long-range drones each day (Institute for the Study of War, April 10).
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into Ukrainian drones has increased their strike accuracy from 30–50 percent at the beginning of the war to 80 percent in 2026. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense says that it is destroying over 80 percent of Russian targets with drones as of January (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, January 26). France’s ATREYD company has sent its Drone Wall System 1 (DWS-1) for testing in Ukraine (ATREYD, accessed April 28). DWS-1 creates a “minefield” of mini drones that, after radar detection, take off to form a curtain in the air to block incoming drones and glide bombs. One operator can control 100 mini drones.
Ukraine is also a leading innovator and manufacturer of interceptor drones. The cheapest such drone costs only $1,200. The next stage is the development of interceptor drone swarms to protect against mass Russian air attacks. Swarm technology requires a single operator—as opposed to one per FPV drone—to control multiple interceptors that communicate with each other in flight and, toward the end of their flight, find their own way to the target (Kyiv Post, April 1). Up to 12 Ukrainian companies are innovating in drone swarm technology, which are projected to enter production by the end of this year. In September 2025, the Ukrainian company Swarmer launched a system in which one Ukrainian soldier operated three drones—one reconnaissance (scout) drone that locates the target and two bomber drones, with plans to increase this to 25 drones (The Wall Street Journal, September 2, 2025). The Ukrainian company The Fourth Law is innovating the integration of AI with swarm drone technology (The Fourth Law, July 10, 2025).
The evolution of Ukrainian military equipment has been described as Ukraine’s “Do-it-yourself (DIY) Defense.” Ukrainians have quickly learned to operate and repair Western military systems. When equipment parts have been unavailable, Ukrainian soldiers have adapted. In one case, Ukrainian military forces ran out of metal tubes and used Pringles chip tubes instead, which were filled with explosives and dropped on Russian forces (DefenseNews, June 20, 2025). Anti-tank mines are used as tires on ground drones, which detonate when entering Russian trenches. Western and former Soviet jets are adapted with French glide bombs and equipped to destroy Russian drones and missiles. One Ukrainian pilot flying an F16 shot down six Russian cruise missiles during a single mission (United24 Media, October 10, 2025). Ukrainian special forces were the first to use electric motorbikes for rapid intervention and escape. In Spring 2022, Ukrainian special forces and drone operators from Aerorozvidka attacked and wore down the 40-mile Russian convoy stuck outside Kyiv, weaving in and out of the forest to attack invading vehicles (The Guardian, March 28, 2022).
Tanks, armored personnel carriers (APCs), and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) have a limited role to play in modern warfare where drones saturate the sky. Until now, large defense contractors have been reluctant to adapt their 20th-century model to the realities of the 21st century. Ukraine pioneered destroying Russian tanks, APCs, and IFVs—military equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars—using drones that cost hundreds of dollars and destroying drones worth $30,000–$50,000 with cheap interceptors costing $1,000–$3,000. Russia’s war against Ukraine is attritional rather than based on fast maneuvers, meaning that using low-cost weapons is essential. Most NATO armies, however, continue to be based on combined-arms maneuverability.
Artillery has remained essential during Russia’s war against Ukraine, due to its range, power, and ability to operate in all weather conditions, compared to tanks, APCs, and IFVs (Ukrainska Pravda, May 26, 2025). The effectiveness of artillery has been enhanced by integration with new drone reconnaissance and targeting systems. Drone warfare has forced artillery to become more mobile and harder to detect. It is doubtful that any NATO army has a large stockpile of artillery shells required for a long, attritional war against a peer military. Within Europe’s largest armies, the number of artillery pieces has declined precipitously since the end of the Cold War. The Ukrainian Bohdana howitzer was invented in 2016. It only began to be manufactured at scale, however, after 2022. Its French (Caesar), Swedish (Archer), and German (Panzer 200) equivalents cost two to four times as much as the Bohdana, which is also easier to repair and maintain. The much-praised GPS-guided HIMARS artillery proved decisive in 2022–2023 but was later disrupted by Russian EW (RBC-Ukraine, May 24, 2024). The Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzer is so technically sensitive that its suitability for combat is seriously questionable (Kyiv Independent, April 11, 2025).
Germany and the United States have decided not to send long-range Taurus and Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine (Ukrainska Pravda, March 25). Each Tomahawk costs $2 million, is fitted with a 450-kilogram (992-pound) warhead, and has a 900–1,500-mile range. Ukraine’s Flamingo missile equivalent, the FP-5, reportedly costs significantly less at under $1.2 million—with claims of as little as $500,000, delivers double the payload at 2,500 pounds, has a similar range, and has been used to strike Russian military factories, including a ballistic missile plant 900 miles inside Russian territory (The Economist, August 27, 2025; The Associated Press, February 21). Ukraine’s smaller FP-7 missile, with a range of 200 kilometers (124 miles), is similar to Lockheed Martin’s ATACMS short-range ballistic system. The FP-9, which can carry an 800-kilogram (1,764-pound) warhead, is predicted to have a range of 855 kilometers (531 miles), placing Moscow within range (The Kyiv Independent, September 4, 2025). The FP-9 is currently in a testing phase.
Inexpensive, one-time-use military equipment has become essential in Ukraine’s defense. Production at scale with military equipment that can be quickly replaced should take precedence over capability and design (Defense News, March 11). The F-35 jet took 20 years to develop, and the B-21 bomber has been under development since 2010. Meanwhile, aircraft carriers take ten years to build. The slowness of procurement and purchase needs to change, with multi-year contracts replacing annual contracts.
Some Western military equipment sent to Ukraine proved unable to perform on the battlefield. Canada sent Armored Combat Support Vehicles (ACSV) with modern technology and a high level of protection. Weighing 29.5 tons, ACSVs proved to be too heavy, easy to detect, power-hungry, and so specialized that they were difficult to repair. Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks are vulnerable to drones and difficult to repair, and sometimes Ukrainians use them as artillery rather than as tanks (Ukrainska Pravda, August 21, 2025). Each generation of U.S. and U.K. tanks has been heavier, which is a drawback on a muddy battlefield in Ukraine. The United States sent Ukraine 31 Abrams M1A1 tanks, which were too heavy and offered limited protection from attacks by cheap Russian drones (Kyiv Post, September 12, 2024). Additionally, Russian EW interfered with the Abrams’s GPS. By mid-2023, the Ukrainian army was no longer using Abrams. Ukrainian battlefield conditions showed a need for Abrams to be lighter, better protected, and better armed.
NATO countries and military companies can test their prototypes on Ukraine’s battlefield. Joint ventures between Western and Ukrainian defense companies have accordingly cropped up. In December 2025, the Ukrainian company Swarmer appointed Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, as its chairman (Kyiv Independent, March 21). In June 2022, Palantir announced plans to open an office in Kyiv, offering data and AI software to Ukraine’s defense sector (President of Ukraine, June 2, 2022). Palantir software uses AI to analyze satellite imagery, open-source data, drone footage, and reports from commanders to identify targets. Palantir drones also collect evidence of war crimes and clear mines. Russia’s war against Ukraine has demonstrated the degree to which NATO will have to prepare for a potential war with a peer military. The importance of Ukraine’s defense sector and expertise in transitioning its military from the 20th to the 21st centuries is growing.
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