David Kirichenko
As the world order continues to take a new shape, Europe has realized it no longer has the luxury of relying solely on the United States for protection. As a result, European countries are moving quickly to help build out Ukraine’s defense industry to also strengthen Europe’s own security for the future. At the center of this shift is Ukraine’s battlefield drone innovations—including its ability to produce them cheaply at scale, which is now reshaping how Europe prepares for a future confrontation with Russia.
Facing uncertainty over U.S. support, Ukraine has focused on expanding its domestically produced drone program, aiming to compensate for potential gaps in Western arms shipments by building a network of drone regiments along the front. Across Ukraine, volunteers and small workshops are fueling a grassroots drone-building movement that supplies frontline troops with cheap, highly effective First-Person View (FPV) attack drones.
Strategic Agility or Abundance?
The strategy of employing cheap drone mass, already credited with stalling Russia’s winter offensive, focuses on saturating Russian lines with low-cost, high-impact drones to limit Russian advances while preserving Ukraine’s soldiers. General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief, speaking at the Ukraine–United Kingdom Defense Technology Forum organized by RUSI, stated that a 10–15 kilometer-wide “zone of continuous death” has formed ahead of the front line – and that this deadly zone is steadily expanding, along with the likelihood of destruction within it.
As Ukraine’s battlefield innovations outpace traditional U.S. defense contractors, American companies and Silicon Valley are increasingly turning to Ukrainian drone makers for their frontline expertise, recognizing that “no U.S. company is keeping up with Ukraine.” Zaluzhnyi added that “Victory on the battlefield now depends entirely on the ability to outpace the enemy in technological development.”
Ukraine in turn, is building a massive drone arsenal on a budget. Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi noted that Ukrainian drones struck and destroyed more than 83,000 Russian targets in April, which was almost a 10% increase from March. Likewise, in November 2024, U.S. Army Chief Gen. Randy George, said, “Ukraine has demonstrated the value of small, attritable drones on the battlefield.”
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