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The 1er In June 2025, 117 Ukrainian drones carried out the largest ever attack on Russian territory, destroying no fewer than five of their airfields, some of them thousands of kilometres from the front line. The Ukrainian operation «Spider's Web» - often compared to a modern Pearl Harbor - is just one example of the «dronisation» of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in other words the massive use of drones by the two adversaries in battle.
While conventional weapons and trench warfare continue to mark this war, drones have emerged as the new tanks of the 21st century.e century. They have become the emblematic weapon that is transforming combat, just as tanks did during the 1914-1918 war. Their importance raises as much the question of their strategic and tactical use as the ability of the belligerents to produce them in large quantities while adapting them to meet changing needs on the front.
In terms of offence, counter-offence, intelligence and defence, how ingenious are the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces in their use of these flying machines? In what way should this use not only challenge our understanding of how war is waged, but also encourage European armies to draw lessons for their own defence and industry?
In this article, the IHEDN has gathered the analyses of three specialists with complementary profiles:
- The army general (in 2e section) Grégoire de Saint-Quentin is Chairman of the consulting firm GEOS, a former government defence adviser and former Deputy Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces in charge of operations. He was operational commander of Operation Serval in Mali, before being appointed commander of special operations in 2013.
- Mat Hauser is co-founder of Dronivka, a company specialising in drone services for the armed forces and industry, as well as Strateon, an organisation helping companies, NGOs and governments to secure their activities in Ukraine.
- Ronald Hatto, a former artilleryman and peacekeeper in the Canadian armed forces, is now a professor of international relations at Sciences Po Paris, specialising in international security, peacekeeping and military sociology.
An unprecedented drone war
The drone is by no means an innovation of the Russian-Ukrainian war. In its sophisticated form, it has been used in Nagorno-Karabakh since 2020, in Syria since 2011 and in Iraq since 2003, when the United States used surveillance drones and then armed drones, notably with MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper strikes. We can go back as far as 1993, when the Americans used reconnaissance drones in the Balkans, and even earlier, from the 1960s, in Vietnam for surveillance.
However, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has been described as one of the first «drone wars». This is due to their ubiquitous, massive and differentiated use by both sides, as well as their ability to be deployed in all three environments: land, air and sea.
As Sweden's ambassador Martin Arberg said at the Kiev summit in 2024, « Ukraine didn't invent drones; it invented how to use them »(«Ukraine didn't invent drones, but it did invent how to use them»). Between 10,000 and 15,000 drones are used daily on the frontline by each belligerent: an unprecedented intensity.
Army General de Saint-Quentin sheds light on the lightning emergence of this technology:
«At the start of the war, there were no drone factories in Ukraine. Today, I think the Ukrainians are capable of producing more than 4 million a year. So things happened gradually, as it became clear that the drone was becoming a central component of combat.»
During the first months of the war, Ukraine quickly adopted the drone to compensate for its lack of conventional means in the face of its aggressor's superior firepower. As early as March 2022, it sent its first grenade-launching light UAVs to the front, imposing a tactical blockade on Russia. Inexpensive, their increasing production has been facilitated by a Ukrainian technological breeding ground that was already flourishing before the war, from which several hundred drone manufacturers have emerged in the country.
From attack to defence: a multi-mission ecosystem
STRIKE DRONES
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are dual technologies, with components from both the military and civilian worlds. Drones from the consumer market, such as FPV (First-Person View) and Mavic, were transformed to meet the immediate needs of the conflict. Their missions were highly varied: attack, reconnaissance, surveillance, saturation, decoying, logistical transport and interception.
Ukraine has invested in a wide range of different drone models, the best known being the FPV, which it will adopt in July 2022 before Russia follows suit. Easily steerable with its on-board camera and fast thanks to its light weight, it is used for observation missions, kamikaze missions or dropping various explosive charges. These drones, which cost just a few hundred euros, can infiltrate trenches, penetrate armoured vehicles, neutralise bunkers and strike at the heart of enemy installations - impossible actions for a soldier without almost certain exposure to death. In recent months, to break away from its Chinese supplier, the leader in the FPV drone market, Ukraine has decided to invest in components that will enable it to develop its own FPV UAVs. made in Ukraine to produce more in the long term.
Strike drones - whether for suicide, drop or long strike missions - offer impressive explosions that often put them in the media spotlight. The Ukrainians are also working on integrating artificial intelligence directly into their prowling munitions.
SURVEILLANCE AND INTERCEPTION DRONES
While these attack drones attract the most attention, other types of drone are also playing a crucial role in this conflict, such as reconnaissance drones. These monitor troop movements, spot enemy targets, help correct artillery fire in real time and assess damage after a strike. The Orlan-10 is one of the most widely used reconnaissance drones on the Russian side. It is thought to have been deployed against Ukrainian soldiers in the Donbass region as early as 2014. Like most drones, its missions are transversal: it can be used for observation, but also for electronic warfare to intercept signals.
In the face of attack drones, there are defensive drones. Ukraine is exploring innovative solutions to defend itself, as Mat Hauser points out:
«Ukraine has invested heavily in very low-cost interceptor drones, designed to neutralise Russian drones while rebalancing, as far as possible, this economic battle.»
Faster than missiles, these drones offer effective airspace protection. In recent months, Ukraine has announced that it is aiming to produce 40,000 interceptor drones a month, inspiring foreign armies. While NATO claims to be developing its own interceptor drones, Romania and Poland are also investing in these cutting-edge technologies in the face of constant air incursions into their territory.
On the other hand, drone production on the Ukrainian side is contributing to the emergence of another challenge: the lack of pilots. To meet this need for manpower, the country has set up a number of drone training schools open to both military personnel and civilians.
The drone as a vector for breakthroughs
LARGE-SCALE DESTRUCTION AT LOW COST
Drones are responsible for between 50 and 80% of the attrition in this conflict, combining human and material destruction. They are thus bringing about major changes in the way war is waged. According to General de Saint-Quentin, this development illustrates how simple equipment can now compete with large opposing forces:
«Alongside highly sophisticated, expensive military equipment, which is therefore produced in small series, we now find equipment from the leisure industry, dual technologies which, when you master them - which is not very difficult - enable you to challenge opponents who are theoretically very well armed. In the jargon, these are called levelling technologies.»
Superiority on the battlefield no longer seems to belong solely to whoever has the most powerful army with the best artillery, armour, ships or aircraft. As the strategists Sun Tzu and Clausewitz anticipated in their respective eras, agility, speed and innovation have become prerequisites for dominating this high-intensity war. Ukraine owes a large part of its resilience to its ability to excel in these areas. On the edge of the front line, hundreds of drones are produced every day in home-made workshops.
The drone demonstrates the effectiveness of low-cost asymmetric resources, both air-land and maritime.. Ukrainian naval drones, costing just a few thousand euros, have enabled a country with no conventional navy to disable Russian warships. Ukraine is thus imposing its strategic presence in the Black Sea.
CONTINUOUS TRANSPARENCY OF THE BATTLEFIELD
The observation drone can spot any movement up to 25 km around the line of contact in real time. General de Saint Quentin points out that this geographical coverage by drones offers near-transparency of the battlefield:
«Drones make it possible to detect and strike very quickly at concentrations of troops trying to break through the front line defences. This creates a tactical stalemate. The front freezes, as it did during the First World War, when the violence of the fire prevented infantrymen from moving outside the protection of the trenches.»
Former gunner Ronald Hatto compares these continuous drone attacks over vast areas to the characteristics of artillery:
«It's a perfect example of the new fashion for «shoot and be shot». [in English, « Shoot and scoot »]. The survival time of combat units in the field is greatly reduced by this transparency of the battlefield.»
This logic complicates the rotation of soldiers and the manoeuvring of heavy equipment and vehicles. The superiority usually accorded to them is diminished, giving an agile David every chance of defeating a slow-moving Goliath.
Ronald Hatto also explains that drones, by taking a place formerly occupied by artillery, necessarily entail a transformation of its traditional use:
«In 2026, with the ubiquity of drones, artillery pieces are now deployed alone rather than in batteries, firing missions rarely involve more than ten rounds, ammunition is stored as far away from the piece as possible and refuelling is generally carried out by air or ground drones.»
The drone is redefining the contours of traditional warfare. Even more than the tool itself, it is the innovative way in which it is used that is transforming military models.
Is Ukraine pioneering a new model of military innovation?
THE UKRAINIAN OPERATIONAL CHAIN, A DARWINIAN MILITARY SYSTEM
In this war, the Ukrainian territory, where most of the fighting is concentrated, acts as a veritable laboratory for military innovation, stimulated by the immediate needs of the front. Any threat or difficulty identified on the front triggers the activation of a short operational chain, with the unit in contact directly transmitting the need to a variety of players: military, industrial, informal workshops, research laboratories and political authorities.
Mat Hauser explains how these players are able to position themselves quickly on solutions :
«These solutions are tested under real conditions, often in a matter of days or weeks, and only those that demonstrate real operational effectiveness and a good cost-benefit ratio are retained. The others quickly disappear.»
This mechanism favours speed of action and prioritisation over the search for a perfect system, a form of «Darwinism in military innovation», according to Mat Hauser. The supply chain is thus adjusted in real time, avoiding the need for a lengthy procurement process. Ronald Hatto also believes that this chain enables weapons systems to evolve rapidly:
«Ukraine is waging an «anti-bureaucratic» war in which the government is doing everything it can to avoid legal constraints on private companies. The aim is to attract as many high-quality civilian players as possible to military operations, particularly in the field of drones.»
«SPOOFING, ELECTRONIC JAMMING AND COUNTERMEASURES
This rapid innovation mechanism is fully applicable to the use of drones: Ukraine must not only produce them continuously, but also design new prototypes to adapt to Russian countermeasures and the battlefield.
For example, the two belligerents quickly developed ways of neutralising attack drones, including spoofing and electronic jamming.
Spoofing involves sending false navigation data to divert Russian drones and missiles from their target trajectory by misleading them about their real position. Closely linked to this is electronic jamming, which involves sending out electronic signals to interfere with the operation and guidance of enemy drones. These two countermeasures have demonstrated significant defensive effectiveness in the field.
However, they themselves were quickly circumvented. As early as spring 2024, Russia innovated with a technology that is immune to jamming: wire-guided drones. These drones are controlled by a fibre-optic cable between 5 and 25 kilometres long and half a millimetre in diameter, which provides them with the data they need to fly without being hacked.
Usually, the link between a conventional drone and its pilot is via radio waves, which are vulnerable to electronic jamming by the enemy. Since a wire-guided drone can only be controlled through its cable, it is impossible to neutralise it and it often hits its target. Capitalising on the effectiveness of this invention, Russia has also deployed naval fibre-optic drones, spotted for the first time in September 2025 in the Black Sea.
This example illustrates the rapid creativity shown by both sides without necessarily innovating in highly advanced technologies.
This approach contrasts with Western industrial production methods, which until the conflict relied on «high-tech» military equipment that was often expensive and took a relatively long time to develop and deploy. On the Ukrainian side, technology is only useful if it is industrially sustainable, easily adaptable and can be integrated in a short timeframe.
AGILE FINANCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CAPABILITIES
Ronald Hatto points out that in addition to this organisational flexibility, Ukraine owes its success in rapid innovation to its financial and industrial flexibility. Financially, it is able to mobilise and allocate the funds needed to meet its own armaments requirements and to sustain a war of attrition. In industrial terms, by working together with all the players in its defence industry, the country is also its leading arms producer: its autonomy is its strength.
The Ministry of Strategic Industries, set up in 2020, is helping to establish links between suppliers and exporters so that prototype weapons can be produced rapidly to meet the demands of the front line.
Russia's offensive strategy in the face of Ukrainian defences
RUSSIAN STRATEGY: BETWEEN ATTRITION AND SATURATION
Russia has increased its drone production tenfold in one year, reaching 1.4 million units by 2024. While Ukraine is producing many more, its adversary is tending to invest more and more in this sector. Russia's strategy is effective and structured: it is based on continuous drone attacks, combining the dispatch of permanent streams of cheap drones with the insertion of a few long-range missiles. Costly and highly accurate, these missiles are capable of causing unexpected mass destruction.
According to Mat Hauser, Russia's massive drone strikes are not primarily aimed at ensuring that all vectors reach their targets:
«When it engages several hundred Geran UAVs over Ukraine on the same night, the main objective is a combination of two major strategic effects: attrition and saturation.»
Attrition is intended to draw Ukraine into an unfavourable cost war. The Russian drones used in these waves remain relatively inexpensive, while the Ukrainian forces have to resort to much more expensive means of defence, such as surface-to-air missiles or interception systems. The desired effect is to erode Ukrainian stocks and increase the defence bill.
Saturation, on the other hand, aims to gradually exhaust the Ukrainian system. Mat Hauser explains:
«By multiplying its vectors, Russia is seeking to overwhelm the detection, command and interception capabilities of the Ukrainian air defence. The first waves are often neutralised with a high success rate, but as the attack drags on, the defence units see their resources depleted.»
Once the defences have been weakened, Russia sees an opportune moment to send the last drones and missiles, which are more likely to reach their targets. Ronald Hatto points out that this logic combining attrition and saturation is not new and emerged more than 50 years ago:
«This technique was used on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) equipped with MIRVs (Multiple Independently targeted Reentry Vehicle) from the 1970s. These large missiles, equipped with several «re-entry vehicles» - nuclear warheads - capable of hitting several targets, could also incorporate decoys: fake nuclear warheads. The aim was to force the enemy, in the event of nuclear strikes, to fire at anything that entered the atmosphere. In this way, decoys diverted anti-ballistic weapons from real nuclear warheads.»
ON THE UKRAINIAN SIDE, A WELL OF HIGH-TECH DEFENSIVE INGENUITY
This offensive Russian pressure acts as a catalyst for Kiev to adapt, forcing Ukraine to develop an asymmetrical response based on other levers, as Mat Hauser explains:
«Ukraine has opted for a strategy based on more limited but repeated in-depth strike campaigns, targeting targets with a very high strategic value.»
Because it does not have the same production capacity as Russia, Ukraine is more interested in strategic precision and optimising the cost/effect ratio than in mass operations. Its attacks focus on specific targets, such as refineries, ammunition depots, logistics convoys and Russian energy and industrial infrastructures.
To cope with this relentless flow of attacks, Ukraine also needs to build up a protective shield. Its «anti-drone wall» involves both a sky police, These include the protection of sites and rights of way, internal security forces and intelligence. In addition to interceptor drones and electronic jamming, Ukraine is deploying other resources.
Start-ups Sky Fortress and Zvook have developed acoustic sensors capable of recording the sound of Russian aircraft in order to identify them. Once an object is recognised - such as a drone, long-range missile or cruise missile - the radar transmits the information to mobile units on the ground who can neutralise the threat. Thousands of these sensors are deployed across Ukraine: an estimated 14,000 Sky Fortress sensors are installed, while Zvook covers around 5 % of the country.
Another innovation to complement the Ukrainian anti-drone shield, still at the prototype stage, will fascinate science fiction fans: the Sunray laser beam. To make up for the shortage of anti-drone missiles, this silent laser weapon, announced at the beginning of February 2026, will be designed to shoot down Russian drones. Back in December 2024, Ukraine announced its first laser beam, Tryzub, which has since been used to strike targets a few kilometres above the ground.
This defensive high-tech is not the only wellspring of ingenuity. In times of war, you also have to make do with little and rethink the use of civilian objects that are «at hand» to keep your infrastructure and population safe. For example, used fishing nets from the Breizhmer company in Brittany have been sent to Ukraine and used to protect against drones. Hanging from poles along roads, sometimes for hundreds of kilometres, their meshes trap any drones that get too close. Various means of this type, sometimes manufactured locally or derived from civilian recycling, illustrate a logic of permanent adaptation in the face of the threat.
The lessons of drones for Europe's armies
At the time of the Russian invasion in 2022, geopolitical experts were unanimous: Ukraine would collapse in a matter of weeks. Four years on, Ukraine is resisting and holding back the Russian advance. Russia has only succeeded in conquering 20% of Ukrainian territory, including just 0.93% in 2025, a decreasing progression that is a sign of strong Ukrainian resistance.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has a lot to teach us. General de Saint-Quentin, with his operational experience at the highest level, confirms this:
«The Ukrainians will take us forward. They have experience of drone combat, not us. They are the ones who are innovating in every area: doctrine, equipment, equipment evolution, software evolution. They are facing an existential threat and to survive, we have to adapt and think fast.»
A NEW WAR MEANS NEW MEANS
Mat Hauser sums up the lessons to be learnt from this conflict in three points: the almost permanent transparency of the battlefield, modern warfare to be thought of as a war of costs, and the drone to be thought of as a complex ecosystem in which different players and logics intertwine.
When it comes to the cost war, Ukraine's success lies in its ability to do as much as possible with limited resources. The conflict is characterised as much by the use of advanced technologies as by Ukraine's remarkable adaptability, based on innovation under pressure, particularly when stocks run out or equipment is destroyed. Sometimes insignificant objects become effective instruments of attack or defence. Brittany's fishing nets are a good example of this: the transformation of their use has saved lives.
So we need to «dualise» the means of waging war, combining military weapons and civilian objects. At the same time, we need to learn to act frugally while redefining a reactive maintenance chain, in particular to renew drone production on an ongoing basis.
In industrial terms, we are therefore moving from a programmatic approach - based on heavy equipment plans - to an approach based on rapid, evolving flows. Because they are not in a war economy, European countries are not moving as fast as Ukraine. This requires short cycles and accelerated innovation: a drone designed in a month in Ukraine would take years to develop in a country at peace.
In tactical terms, the drone does not change the aim of the war, but the way in which it is fought. In the past, the air-land force relied on concentration to break through the front line. Today, such concentration would make it an easy target, which the enemy would quickly destroy thanks to drones.
Geographic deconcentration is therefore necessary and should lead to a rethink of the disposition of troops in contact, and the organisation of evacuation and strategic supply lines. The ability to deconcentrate forces goes hand in hand with better interconnection of command systems.
European armies are already drawing inspiration from their Ukrainian counterparts. General de Saint-Quentin notes that a process of exchanges with Ukraine is already well established:
«One thing that works well in the armed forces is RETEX, feedback. France has an embassy on site with a defence attaché who has to pass on this information, and possibly the most promising solutions from his point of view.»
COOPERATION AND MORAL STRENGTH AS FUELS FOR SUCCESS
Beyond this model of military innovation, Ukraine's resilience is due to the strengthened collaboration between its armed forces, industry, the private sector and civilian support. The whole of society is mobilised in the service of the country's resistance and defence. Mat Hauser gives us a concrete illustration of this:
«Initiatives such as Social Drones have enabled ordinary civilians to participate directly in the production effort. Volunteers receive or print drone parts at home, assemble them in the evenings after work or classes following standardised procedures, and then ship these drones in small batches.»
With or without drones, even before having weapons and an industry, the support of the population is essential. National unity transforms a society into a fighting force. Training in the spirit of defence is therefore necessary to prepare one's own country as well as possible for future shocks. The words of Raymond Aaron in 1981, recalled by Ronald Hatto, say it best:
«The morality of the citizen is to put survival and the safety of the community above all else. But if the morality of Westerners is now the morality of pleasure, of individual happiness, and not the virtue of the citizen, then survival is in question. If there is nothing left of the citizen's duty, if Europeans no longer have the feeling that we have to fight to preserve these opportunities for pleasure and happiness, then we are indeed both brilliant and decadent».»
This table provides a non-exhaustive overview, given the rapid and ongoing development of Ukrainian and Russian UAVs.
