Speaking in Riga, Armed Forces Minister Al Carns argued that drones have become the dominant weapons system on the modern battlefield and that the implications for how Western militaries organise, equip and supply themselves are profound. “It’s not about integration, it’s about redesigning, restructuring around the most effective killing weapons system that you have in the battlefield today,” he said.

Carns offered a series of statistics to illustrate the scale of the shift. He said that during a recent battle in the war, there were 12,000 drones in the air in a 24-hour period, and that in December and January Russia issued one million drones to the front line. Drawing on his own analysis, he argued that a single drone equates to 22 artillery rounds in terms of lethality and accuracy.

Even taking that figure down by 50 percent, he said, 1,637 drones would be needed to generate the battlefield effect of 57 truckloads of artillery shells, but those drones would require only two truckloads to deliver. “Follow that logic across every part of the battlefield, and you begin to grasp the scale of the challenge that is now required, not tomorrow, but today,” he said.

He warned that Russia has already adapted, noting that in the past fortnight it launched one of the largest drone attacks of the war, deploying over 1,500 drones and missiles and using new high-density, high-trajectory tactics that brought strikes close to the NATO border. Adding that if Putin sees a force that has not adapted to the lessons of Ukraine, “he will not perceive it as a lack of deterrence, but he will see it as an opportunity.”

On the UK’s contribution to the drone coalition, Carns said the UK delivered £600 million worth of drones to Ukrainian forces last year, increasing numbers by a factor of ten from 10,000 in 2024 to 100,000 in 2025. Through Project Archangel, the coalition has delivered 150,000 drone interceptors. He said the UK is investing £4 billion in uncrewed systems and building an integrated targeting network, and is developing a drone centre of excellence strategy with Latvia, binding industry, educators and warfighters into a combined enterprise, alongside introducing a drone degree to train forces for the future.

Carns closed with a direct challenge to the alliance, saying “I ask you to know whether you have enough infantry tanks and planes, but do you have enough drone operators, data experts, AI engineers, EW experts, unmanned surface vessels, unmanned ground vessels, and unmanned aerial systems to sustain the rate of conflict that is going on with Ukraine. If the answer is no, then we have a problem. So we must be ready.”