The evolving nature of warfare has redefined the fundamental principles of global security: the Ukrainian experience and the emerging world order.
www.pravda.com.ua
Fri, 25 Apr 2025 12:25:00 +0300
Speech by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, CommanderinChief of Ukraine 20212024 Valerii Zaluzhnyi at the UK Ukraine Defence Tech Forum. April 25, 2025 It is a great honor for me to be once again within the walls of a British think tank that specializes on international security and military affairs.
Today we will talk about them.
Today it is extremely important. First of all, probably everyone present in this room has understood that we live in times of global changes.
So the reason is not me, who commented on this last year in the walls of Chatham House, but a whole range of factors that have surfaced in the 21st century.
Especially the war in Ukraine, which has become not only the bloodiest act of violence in the 21st century so far, but also the driving force behind many forces that have already led to changes in the world order.
This change has already happened.
And it doesnt depend on whether modern politicians want to see it or not. Secondly, in a world that has already changed and continues to change, the global security system has also changed, against the wishes of the same politicians.
It has transformed not only because the geopolitical space is changing, but also because the very force on which this security system was based has changed due to the war in Ukraine.
Whether you want to believe it or not, whether you have contracts for tanks or helicopters for the next 10 years or are still planning to sign them, the nature of military power has already changed.
Its a pity that this is well understood in Ukraine, Russia, China, but not at all understood in other places.
I wont say in which ones today.
It doesnt matter anymore. So we will talk about Ukrainian technologies.
Who will need them, except for Ukraine, will obviously be decided by politicians.
I will only outline what they are and how they work. Although, I would also like to note that they are most relevant now for building the defense capabilities of Europe.
First of all, because of the reformatting of the EuroAtlantic security space that has begun.
So, about technology.
The RussianUkrainian war completely changed the nature of warfare.
One morning in the summer of 2023, when Ukrainian troops, using available doctrines and existing weapons, were overcoming enemy defense lines meter by meter, drones appeared in the sky, which caused the transformation of the entire architecture of the battle.
Reconnaissance, strike drones, and drones that served artillery fire, combined with a situational awareness system, made the battlefield completely transparent.
All this provided unlimited opportunities for delivering highprecision strikes at the tactical level.
Gradually, as in World War I, this war entered a stupor.
Later, in 2024, the development of scientific and technological progress led to a situation where drones were no longer the only means of striking targets not only in front of the front line, but also in operational depth.
This made it impossible to find any equipment, firepower, or reserves beyond even the front line. Precision strikes on logistics routes have become commonplace today.
Moreover, such strikes are already part of the tactics of forcing out of positions.
Thus, due to absolute transparency, a 1015 kilometer zone of continuous death was formed in front of the front line.
It is no longer surprising when a drone hunts not for a group target or an armored object, but even for an individual soldier.
By the way, this zone is constantly expanding, as is the probability of being destroyed.
Why has it become possible Once again, I repeat, the reasons for this are as follows.
Firstly, the rapid development of electronic warfare EW means.
It was thanks to the development of electronic warfare that it was possible to neutralize the ability of satellite technologies, radio and GPRSguided munitions to deliver highprecision strikes at the operational level.
The effectiveness of expensive missiles and precisionguided munitions has dropped to zero.
Second, a large number of visual reconnaissance and strike drones of tactical and operational levels have appeared on the battlefield.
As a result, tactics and operational art underwent significant changes.
At the operational level the war has reached a stalemate.
Deep maneuvers or strikes to operational depth have become impossible.
Largely because the confrontation between unmanned systems on the one hand and electronic warfare and air defense means on the other continues.
Therefore, classic offensive operations and offensive actions have not only lost their effectiveness, but have become almost suicidal.
Over time, even offensive actions by small, highly mobile, and technologically equipped tactical groups coordinated with situational awareness, support, electronic warfare, and air defense systems became highly ineffective.
Thus, we can say with confidence that Thanks to unmanned systems and digital technologies, the traditional and familiar types of weapons that defined the nature of war for decades have become history.
They are gone.
Armored vehicles, which have been the basis of offensive operations since 1915, have become defenseless against cheap drones, and therefore, their use in other types of combat is impossible today.
Highprecision weapons that used GPRS positioning have lost their effectiveness due to the development of electronic warfare.
Air defense is undergoing perhaps the biggest transformation.
The emergence of a large number of small and cheap drones has made the use of extremely expensive missiles for air defense systems economically impractical.
The airspace above the battlefield became inaccessible to manned aircraft and turned it into an auxiliary means of air defense.
Aviation needs modernization and the ability to conduct reconnaissance and strike from completely different distances.
The sea space has gradually been occupied by naval drones.
Now powerful ships hide in protected ports.
This is not just technology.
All of this requires a complete rethinking of the forms and means of application.
As a result, the military doctrine was revised.
This will lead to a revision of the principles of organizing the Armed Forces and, ultimately, to defense planning.
I dont know how long this will take you, dear audience.
I think that for our enemies this process will take no more than three years, and taking into account the scaling five.
It is obvious that victory on the battlefield now depends entirely on the ability to outpace the enemy in technological development.
It is very important that changes occur in the chain science development production application.
Innovative development will depend on the effective interconnection between them.
Manufacturers must be flexible and adaptable, ready to make changes to their hardware solutions at any time.
If your hardware solutions are regulated by state bureaucracy or corrupt interests, the chain will break and the enemy will be ahead.
So you must be prepared to modify products to suit the conditions of use on the battlefield.
Of course, it is necessary to pay attention to the following Development of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.
It is obvious that the speed of implementing AI technologies on the battlefield, especially in managing complex processes in the fields of intelligence, planning, control, fire destruction, as well as autonomous combat systems without human control, will provide a qualitative and quantitative advantage.
Decisions in the field of electronic warfare.
They are perhaps the most important.
It is necessary to essentially solve two extremely important tasks create a digital field for application and protect it from enemy influence.
And this, of course, is the search for new communication technologies.
For example, cognitive radio.
Such developments already exist.
Which means that such communication can adapt.
Finding new ways to navigate and reorient is also important.
Development of new data transmission methods that go beyond the radio frequency spectrum.
Development of cheap, highprecision, longrange unmanned systems.
This is necessary for Increasing the ability to systematically destroy enemy infrastructure Depleting enemy air defense systems The need to launch combined attacks on important enemy targets.4.
Development and production of drones robots as a component of basic combat capabilities.
The RussianUkrainian war has taught countries an important lesson a war that involves exchanging human lives for tactical successes is no longer affordable.
In modern combat, a person is an extremely expensive resource.
A resource that cannot be restored.
It is technology that allows us to maintain combat effectiveness while radically reducing costs. Therefore, we must develop Strike drones that have proven their exceptional effectiveness, especially in conditions of artillery ammunition shortages Reconnaissance Antiaircraft Groundbased unmanned systems Universal platforms Maritime unmanned systems. 5.
Civilian or dualuse technologies have reached such a level of sophistication that today they form the basis of combat capabilities.
Among them Use of commercial satellite systems for intelligence purposes Using 3D printing for the rapid production of spare parts and components of military equipment in handicraft conditions Using social networks to collect intelligence Creation of improvised electronic warfare systems from commercially available components to jam communications and control enemy drones Use of civil messengers with endtoend encryption for data exchange Use of cloud solutions.
By the way, this is what already enables small players with limited resources individual countries, departments, and even units to achieve impressive results using relatively inexpensive asymmetric solutions.
In conclusion, the revolution in military technology based on unmanned systems and artificial intelligence has completely changed the nature of war and is provoking it to evolve.
So the speed of innovation implementation directly increases a states ability to achieve victory in war. Presumably, in the future hightech war the winner will be the one who adapts to the technological conditions of the battlefield faster than the enemy.
The side that is the first to make the transition to a different militarytechnological order systematically and qualitatively will have an unconditional strategic advantage and impose its will on the other side. As long as the enemy has the resources, forces, and means to strike at our territory and attempt offensive actions, he will do so.
This is a war of attrition.
Only the complete destruction of the ability to wage war, that is the militaryeconomic potential, can put an end to this.
The destruction of the latter, of course, calls into question even the presence of occupation troops in the occupied territory.
In any case, the architecture of the strategy of both victory and survival at the current stage is possible only by building a new militarytechnological system.
In the current technological cycle, which may last no more than 35 years.
On the international arena, the way out of the situation we are talking about today lies not only in adapting to new challenges, but in forming a new global security reality, to which Ukraine has already joined as an equal and active participant.
Ukraine is no longer just an object of support we have become a source of experience, technologies, and solutions that have a strategic importance to the entire civilized world.
This is not just a matter of supporting Ukraine it is a matter of joint readiness for a new era of warfare dominated by technology, information and decision automation.
The Ukrainian experience has become unique we were the first to be forced to restructure our army, industry, and strategy in response to challenges that others are only beginning to realize.
These challenges are not just for Ukraine.
They are challenges for everyone.
Global security is no longer based on old guarantees it is built on dynamics, technology and a willingness to change.
We made our choice and pay a high price for it every day, but in return we were given a chance to survive.
And we invite you to make this choice with us.
To not only survive, but to win.
And not just today, but in everything that lies ahead.
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