Over three years into the Russia-Ukraine War, the implications for unmanned and autonomous warfare are still unfolding rapidly.

In a clear sign of the Kremlin’s ambitions, nineteen Russian drones crossed into Poland’s airspace in an attempt to test NATO’s resolve. Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said that Poland was at its “closest to open conflict since World War Two.” For Vladimir Putin, it was a message of defiance, a way of saying that he would not back down to Western pressure. 

This incursion comes as Russia’s war in Ukraine is well into its fourth year, dragging on far longer than Moscow anticipated when it launched its invasion in February 2022. What was supposed to be a quick campaign has become a war of attrition, with casualties mounting to over a million, according to the British Ministry of Defence. Kyiv’s resistance has leaned heavily on inexpensive unmanned systems to offset Russia’s advantages in mass and firepower. 

Over time, Russia has learned from its mistakes. Once its vast war machine fixes on a solution that works, it can replicate it at scale. The Rubicon drone formation is an example of that success. But perhaps its biggest success has been scaling drone production. 

Ukraine is now working to deploy unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) more widely across the front, pairing them with drones to create a technological edge that will help sustain its fight for years to come. “Ukraine’s adaptation to robotics is accelerating,” said Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center and former Ministry of Defense adviser. 

However, the longer the war continues, the more opportunities China and Russia have to learn and adapt.

Ukraine’s Successful Asymmetrical Warfare with Unmanned Systems

After the battle for Avdiivka—and months of delayed US assistance that constrained artillery stocks—Ukraine relied more heavily on first-person-view (FPV) drones to blunt mechanized pushes. The economics are compelling: a low-cost FPV can disable a tank worth millions. Yet these systems are force multipliers, not substitutes; they perform best when paired with timely artillery and accurate targeting. 

Now, Ukraine has a “drone wall” that forms the core of its defense. Over time, Kyiv hopes to expand this concept into a broader technological shield—what Moscow might see as a steel porcupine. 

Pavel Gubarev, a Russian militant, commented, “They [Ukrainians] dug in, sit there, we attack and they use those FPVs and… kill us. That’s the paradigm of this war.” The result is that Russia has to feed waves of its soldiers into meatgrinder assaults. 

Ukraine is working to produce several million FPV drones by the end of 2025, while also fielding over 15,000 ground robots. The aim is to reduce the need for more troops on the frontline. However, ground drones are still in their early stages of development and are more challenging to produce and deploy in large quantities. “The main challenge is limited saturation, while FPV and kamikaze drones are widespread, ground systems are still harder to field at scale,” said Kuzan.

Unmanned systems are further shaping Ukraine’s broader battlefield strategy. In June, during “Operation Spider’s Web,” Ukraine’s security services used inexpensive drones launched from mobile trucks to strike multiple Russian airfields, damaging numerous strategic bombers. The operation signaled that relatively cheap systems can impose heavy costs on military installations far from the front. It also meant that far more would need to be spent on defending Russian bases. 

Over time, Ukraine has demonstrated that asymmetrical warfare, combined with technological advantages, can enable smaller states to mount highly effective defenses against much larger powers. 

Yet prolonged wars allow larger foes to study, adapt, and improve their output. “In the past year, this Ukraine-Russia adaptation battle has metastasized into a global adaptation war,” said Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army Major-General.

The Axis of Evil’s Technological Convergence

The so-called “Axis of Evil”—or as some call it, the “Axis of Upheaval”—is advancing technologically by pooling expertise and learning from one another. Venezuela already has Iranian-designed drones. Iran has helped develop Shahed drones for Russia. 

According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia is helping North Korea build Shahed-type “kamikaze” drones and is supporting Pyongyang to produce new warships. Chinese components are crucial to the production of Russian drones. Ryan added, “The Russians have also shared what they have learned with the North Koreans, the Chinese, and the Iranians.”

Russia has adopted and locally manufactured Iranian-designed Shahed drones, modifying them to suit its needs. It has also expanded domestic production of other drone types, allowing it to launch dozens, sometimes more than a hundred, per day across the front. 

By July 2025, Russia had been able to launch over 700 in a single night against Ukraine. Following the largest attack of the war on Ukraine in early September, the Institute for the Study of War wrote, “Russia launched its largest combined drone and missile strike against Ukraine of the war to date on the night of September 6 to 7 with 823 total projectiles.” The scale of Russia’s attacks continues to increase, and Ukraine’s vulnerabilities are Europe’s too. 

Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, Ukraine’s new drone boss, recalled visiting a NATO base last year and recently remarked, “Without coming closer than 10 kilometers, four crews of Ukrainian drone pilots could have turned that place into another Pearl Harbor in just 15 minutes. I’m not saying this to scare anyone—only to point out that these technologies are now so accessible and cheap.” 

Deborah Fairlamb, founding partner of Ukraine-focused venture capital firm Green Flag Ventures, said, “Sheer Ukrainian determination, alongside the use of UAVs, UGVs, and new battlefield tactics, has become a hallmark of Ukraine’s successful defense against the full-scale  Russian war machine, three and a half years on.”

However, Fairlamb notes that it is essential to acknowledge that for every new element of Ukrainian defense, the Russians have also evolved their tactics accordingly. The Kremlin is not working in isolation, and thousands of North Korean troops have fought alongside Russian forces. Many more have been employed in Russian drone facilities to contribute and learn.

Fairlamb added, “Chinese components continue to be found in downed Russian drones, and a number of Chinese nationals have been documented alongside Russian troops—indicating that tactical and technological lessons are being learned and shared between Russia, China, and North Korea.” 

Learning from Ukraine’s successes at sea, Russia is building new naval drones and even a “drone carrier.” Dimko Zhluktenko from the 413th Separate Battalion of Unmanned Systems said on X, “It was only a matter of time” before the Russians would learn and copy Ukraine. 

In August, Russia successfully used a naval drone to strike a Ukrainian Navy reconnaissance ship for the first time. The Russian army is also working to integrate UGVs across the frontline. Its experiments range from crude supply “boxes on wheels” and hoverboard-borne kamikaze drones to more advanced systems, such as a tracked, uncrewed TOS-1A rocket launcher and the “Dronobus” mothership for fiber-optic drones. Some Russian UGVs are also equipped with grenade launchers, machine guns, and a laser system for demining. 

Samuel Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said, “The Russian defense industry so far has not demonstrated the full weight of its potential in UGV production.” Bendett added, “Although there are indications that some Russian defense enterprises are starting to manufacture more military UGVs.” 

Over time, Russia’s partners are likely to benefit from its advances in robotics as well. This raises difficult questions for Western policymakers.

“The EU and US have been reluctant to fully engage with Ukraine to grasp the complete scope of the tactical and technological lessons from this war—wary of provoking Russia,” said  Fairlamb. 

Europe’s Opportunity in Autonomous and Robotic Warfare

One of those lessons is the speed of innovation. In 2022, new battlefield technologies remained in use for about seven months before being replaced. By 2023, the cycle had shrunk to five or six months, in 2024 to just three to four months, and by early 2025, it was down to barely four to six weeks. Wars stimulate massive leaps in technological progress. 

“Ukraine and its allies are competing with Russia and its partners in innovation. But innovation alone is not decisive. It matters over a one-to-three-year horizon, but it isn’t an end in itself—because innovative solutions cannot be scaled in just a few months,” said Vitaliy Goncharuk, CEO of A19Lab and former chairman of the Artificial Intelligence Committee of Ukraine.

“Whether the collective West likes it or not, UAVs and UGVs are now permanent features of the battlefield, tools that both Russia and China will employ in future conflicts,” Fairlamb added. “Ukraine remains the West’s best source of hard-won insights into how these systems can be developed, deployed, and countered.” Commenting on lessons from the war, Ryan stated that “traditional models of land warfare are now largely obsolete.”

There is widespread demand across the West for Ukrainian technology. But Ukraine faces a dual challenge: meeting urgent demand at the front while also pursuing exports, as drone companies need foreign sales to generate the revenue needed to scale production and invest in R&D. Some progress is being made. In early September, Ukraine launched its first joint drone production line in Denmark.

Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian member of parliament, said, “When European companies open production lines in Ukraine, it’s a win-win. They get access to Ukrainian innovation and production capacity, while we get foreign investment and political support from their governments.”

The Russia-Ukraine war, as one Ukrainian soldier put it, is “a war of drones” and “a war of technology.” The next phase of this technological war will have a growing focus on autonomous systems and ground robotics. 

While Russia helps the Axis of Evil advance technologically, Europe, together with Ukraine, has the capacity to become a global leader in these fields and ensure it is prepared for the wars of the future.