Ukraine has become the world leader in drone and counter-drone warfare, outpacing not only Russia but many NATO members, and the alliance now has as much to learn from Kyiv as it has to teach, NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte has said.
Asked how Ukraine could contribute to the alliance as it pushes towards a modernised NATO, Rutte said Ukraine was gaining “so much insight and experience when it comes to the latest technology”, particularly drones and counter-drone systems, and was now “number one in the world on that”. Ukraine, he said, was “ahead of Russia, they are ahead of many NATO countries, and we really can learn from Ukraine on this”.
The traditional flow of expertise had in places reversed, Rutte said, noting that while “NATO can teach Ukraine, learn Ukraine, one or two things”, for example in the air domain, “when it comes to particularly drones, it is Ukraine teaching the other”. The two sides were capturing those lessons jointly at what he called “this joint centre in Poland, where we capture all the lessons”.
Beyond the technology itself, Rutte pointed to the innovation Ukraine had been forced into by the war, saying the country had to be “so innovative, fighting this war against Russia” and staying clearly ahead so that Russia was “not being successful in achieving his war aims”, lessons from which NATO could learn “when it comes to policies, when it comes to strategy” and the updating of its plans.
Across all of those areas, the defence industrial base, drone technology and the latest insights from the battlefield, Rutte said the alliance was “becoming stronger as NATO, in the meantime, helping Ukraine to stay strong in the fight”.
He stressed, however, that Kyiv could only keep changing the dynamic on the battlefield with continued allied backing, saying Ukraine was “changing the dynamic on the battlefield and inflicting huge losses on Russia” but could only keep doing so “if we step up our support”, not just for immediate needs such as air defence but over the long term, “because Ukraine’s security is important for our own security”.
They are the leader of mass production drones (which is one of the reasons I hope they become a workshop for NATO down the line) not so much high end drones
They have never built the equivalent of the Global Hawk or Sky Guardian
Ukraine has literally written the book on Drone doctrine, strategy, tactics and use. There is a 20KM band of land where anything that the Russians move dies. As long range systems come on line attacks on oil infrastructure in Moscow and further afield are becoming more common. Russian air defence is unable to counter these attacks.
Sadly the British Army is slow to learn the lessons of Ukraine and is insisting on spending billions more pounds on the unsafe and obsolete Ajax concept rather than mass training, deployment and use of drones.
The US believes every one should buy F35 – which is horribly expensive and unreliable. Ukraine has proved there is a different way.
Mod meanwhile are studying the use of a drone the US introduced two years ago. By the time they have come to any conclusion that drone will be ten iterations out of date and obsolete. Product iteration cycle in Ukraine is three to four weeks. It takes MOD a year to think about doing anything. For this reason the UK should establish a fully independent Unmanned systems Group empowered to spec and buy whatever they want. Our approach needs to change.