The widespread use of drones observed in Ukraine—both in terms of the scale of the fleets deployed and their omnipresence in the operations of both belligerents—appears to meet the conditions of a genuine military revolution.
Dronization cannot be reduced to a mere technical innovation or a specific category of devices. It stands as a transformative principle, comparable to motorization and mechanization in the past century. It manifests in the evolution of drones into expendable and adaptive tools, the emergence of a “participatory war”, and in the conduct of operations, which is shifting toward “multi-fire, multi-domain” combat.
For the European force model, the Ukrainian example should prompt the establishment of the digital, industrial, and human ecosystem needed to support dronization: building a unified information and decision-support system, fostering a “drone culture” within the armed forces, and, in the short term, focusing on the “high-end” segment of dronization—namely, long-range strike capabilities.
Now entering its third year, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has become the theater of a massive drone-driven transformation of military operations. This phenomenon is unprecedented, both in quantitative terms—with several million drones now produced and destroyed each year—and in its influence on the dynamics of operations and the structure of forces. For context, the most drone-intensive conflict prior to 2022 was the war over Nagorno-Karabakh, where drones were responsible for around 45% of all losses in armored vehicles, artillery, and air defense systems. In Ukraine, by 2025, drones are estimated to account for 60 to 70% of all losses across all categories.
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