David's Slingshot: How drones became a survival strategy for Ukraine, are changing the global balance of power, and are becoming a global threat to international order

The Kalashnikovs of the 21st century: drones as a military phenomenon

Ukraine has transformed the face of modern warfare. This phrase is now echoed by military analysts and journalists alike. Despite being vastly outmatched by Russia in terms of equipment and manpower, Ukraine has repeatedly shown its ability to inflict painful strikes on Russian military assets and infrastructure. The attack on Russia’s strategic bombers is perhaps the most high-profile example, but it was preceded by strikes on military airfields, such as the one in Pskov in 2023, as well as attacks on Black Sea Fleet vessels, Russian oil refineries, and fuel depots. According to various estimates, including those from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), drone strikes account for up to 70% of Russian personnel and equipment losses.

Operations like the one conducted on 1 June may not shift the overall course of the war, but they deal significant damage and demonstrate the potential of asymmetric warfare. Ukrainian drones have become a symbol of this David-versus-Goliath conflict. Over two years of war, Ukraine has built a vast, flexible, and largely decentralised drone infrastructure covering production, testing, logistics, and operator training. According to Ukrainian officials, the country has become the world’s largest user, developer, and producer of combat drones. Gleb Kanivsky, Director of Procurement Policy at Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, claims that over 1.5 million drones were procured last year, most of them FPV drones, with 96% sourced from Ukrainian manufacturers and suppliers. This year, Kanivsky says, Ukrainian industry may be able to supply up to 4.5 million combat drones.

According to Statista Market Insights, cited by Business Insider, the world’s largest drone producer in 2024 is China, with 2.9 million units. However, Chinese statistics do not distinguish between civilian and military drones. In practice, large numbers of Chinese civilian drones are being repurposed for military use by both Ukraine and Russia. In April, Vladimir Putin stated that Russia had produced 1.5 million drones in 2024, including around 4,000 FPV drones, though Russian authorities are known for their loose interpretation of statistics and facts concerning their military capabilities. According to The Washington Post, Russia currently produces 300–500 drones a day based on Iranian designs at a facility in Yelabuga, i.e. around 150,000 annually. It is clear that Russia does not yet have nine other such factories. Most likely, Russian authorities are including drones imported from Iran and China in their totals.

Strikes like the one on 1 June undermine confidence in the invulnerability of great powers when challenged by weaker opponents. Traditional models of military superiority, based on expensive weaponry, have repeatedly proven vulnerable in this war to simple, low-cost, and mobile technologies. FPV drones and the networks that support their operation are not merely tactical innovation, they also signal the beginning of systemic transformation, write military researchers Antonio Salinas and Jason Liouet in an article for War on the Rocks. The dominance of the world’s leading armies has long rested on complex, costly platforms – tanks, fighter jets, aircraft carriers – which require millions or even billions to build and maintain. FPV drones have upended this model. Drones, once the tools of highly trained military pilots operating from secure bases, are now infantry weapons. The FPV drone (First Person View) is the Kalashnikov of the 21st century.

Scaling up: the drone army as a social phenomenon

New weapons technologies seldom transform warfare by themselves; such transformation occurs only when military organisation adapts around them, argue Michael Horowitz and Stephen Rosen in their book The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics. Salinas and Liouet cite the transformation of warfare brought about by the introduction of smoothbore firearms (such as the arquebus) and the Spanish tercio, a tactical unit that dominated European wars in the 16th and 17th centuries. The arquebus was an unreliable weapon, slow to reload and fire, but in combination with pikemen and swordsmen, it became a deadly force. Similarly, FPV drones are not 'wonder weapons' in themselves; according to War on the Rocks, they require new operational concepts and new military structures.

Such a structure essentially already exists and is active, according to the authors of the London School of Economics (LSE) study ‘The Ukrainian Drone Ecosystem and European Defence.’ In operations involving FPV drones, decisive factors are not the power of the platforms or the level of technological novelty, but access to accurate intelligence, synchronised logistics, rapid decision-making, and the ability to integrate civilian and military resources. The breakthrough here is not technological but the creation of a unique, flexible, and horizontal social ecosystem, LSE experts assert. This decentralised cooperation includes the Ministry of Defence, engineers, frontline operators, programmers, volunteers, and training centres, all linked through feedback loops that allow for the rapid adaptation of drones to battlefield conditions.

In effect, a new military branch – the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces – was established by decree of President Zelensky on 6 February 2024, and on 3 June 2025, Robert Brovdi, with the callsign 'Madyar'. A successful businessman before the invasion, Brovdi began as a platoon commander and, by spring 2022, had formed one of the first drone aerial reconnaissance units ('Madyar’s Birds'), which by January 2024 had evolved into a separate 'unmanned systems' brigade. His meteoric rise demonstrates that the successful advancement of innovation cannot be separated from the advancement of those who organise it – individuals who understand both the opportunities and the complexities of scaling innovation. 'We may hate or criticise [the Ukrainians],' laments the author of the Russian military-propaganda Telegram channel Two Majors, 'but could a lieutenant, mobilised in 2022, become the commander of an entire military branch by 2025 in our country? And deservedly so, based on performance? No.'

'Ukrainian adaptability is becoming a new benchmark in defence strategy, both for Ukraine itself and for its allies,' writes Tim Judah in a lengthy essay on Ukraine’s drone infrastructure for The New York Review. A shortage of manpower compels Ukraine to rely on innovative unmanned systems, while its defence sector is evolving into a startup ecosystem. Investment platforms such as the non-profit Invest in Bravery bring together military personnel, developers, and entrepreneurs. As previously noted, the overwhelming majority of devices currently produced in Ukraine are FPV drones, but there is also active work underway on mass production of autonomous aerial and ground vehicles capable of laying mines, delivering ammunition, or evacuating the wounded. Tens of thousands of small unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are already operating in the 'kill zones' – areas near the front line that are too dangerous to enter on foot. the front line that are impossible to enter without risking one's life.

This existential necessity, combined with the societal ecosystem built around drones, has become David’s true weapon in his battle against Goliath. Experts from major military powers are observing this situation from the comfort of strategic planning committees and growing defence budgets. They can choose from a nearly limitless range of strategies. What they cannot do is place themselves in the survival situation that has given rise to Ukraine's strategic and tactical innovations.

Challenges for military powers

Nevertheless, the Ukrainian experience is already influencing strategic planning within NATO countries, prompting a rethinking of established concepts and strategies. Ukraine has become a 'laboratory for future wars', where new models of military, technological, and civilian interaction are tested in real time, according to experts from the NATO Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre (JALLC). According to the Strategic Defence Review recently presented by the British government, the UK will spend an additional £2 billion on drones and begin implementing the operational lessons of the war in Ukraine. 

The countries on NATO's eastern flank, as well as Norway and the United States, are reassessing their defence budgets and starting to create units focused not on acquiring expensive platforms, but on adaptability, training, and the mass production of 'intelligent combat systems'. China, too, is studying the Ukrainian war as a case study in the conduct of a major military power. 

In a hypothetical war over Taiwan, China would be the Goliath. Chinese military experts have concluded that Russia’s reliance on hybrid methods of deterrence (information operations, political pressure) has not succeeded, according to a recent RAND report, What Lessons Is China Learning from Russia’s War in Ukraine? The blitzkrieg failed, and the protracted nature of the conflict has cast doubt on Russia’s ability to manage mobilisation and logistics. Recognising this, the leadership of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is, according to RAND, preparing for long, exhausting wars rather than swift capitulations. Chinese experts believe that one of Russia’s key weaknesses has been its over-reliance on centralised decision-making and its inability to adapt to rapidly changing battlefield conditions. In response, the PLA is reportedly working to foster tactical-level initiative and to enhance civil-military cooperation and logistical resilience – all areas where the Russian army has struggled in Ukraine.

Other analysts point to the challenges posed by the proliferation of cheap drones to traditional deterrence strategies, since drones complicate attribution and escalation control. (A striking example is the 1 June attack, in which low-cost Ukrainian drones targeted part of Russia’s nuclear triad.) The use of expensive air defence systems against inexpensive drones is highly inefficient and dangerous, as it can strain defensive resources and complicate deterrence strategies, according to a report by the US National Defence University (NDU).

Drones will not replace large weapons systems, but they are already changing their roles and configurations. The issue is not whether costly missile systems should be replaced by FPV drones, but how best to integrate them. Ukraine, without formal security guarantees and not a member of NATO, has been able to reconfigure its defence through flexibility, ingenuity, and the integration of civilian and military capabilities. This capacity for rapid adaptation and whole-of-society coordination is becoming the key lesson for future conflicts.

Liberation technology or source of instability?

However, 'technologies of liberation' can effortlessly become their own opposite. The development of cheap and mobile military technologies in Ukraine is taking place within the context of a weaker state defending itself against the aggression of a stronger one. This situation renders such technologies morally acceptable, even sympathy-inducing. Yet precisely because of this, they can easily slip out of state control. Their simplicity and accessibility make them particularly attractive to non-state actors, such as armed groups, terrorist organisations and private military companies.

The affordability and availability of drones level the playing field between small actors and major powers, thereby challenging traditional models of deterrence, according to the report ‘Drones in the hands of non-state actors: growing risks and new challenges’ by the Trends Research & Advisory centre in Abu Dhabi. This is creating a qualitatively new strategic environment, in which the line between state and non-state violence becomes increasingly blurred. Conflicts initiated not by armies but by networks of actors pursuing their own political or economic interests could become the norm. What appears today as a 'technology of liberation' in one context may tomorrow become a source of instability in another.

Terrorist and insurgent groups are already expressing interest in commercially available drones, adapting them for strikes against both military and civilian targets. This lowers the threshold for participation in armed conflict and complicates the ability of regular armies to respond. According to RAND experts, drones are becoming a weapon not only for asymmetric warfare between states, but for a 'war of all against all'. Thus, the spread of unmanned technologies is not merely changing how wars are fought – it is transforming the very conditions of global security. And beyond mastering the capabilities of drone warfare, nations will need to invent countermeasures against them at an even faster pace.

Re:Russia / Maxim Trudolyubov