Season 2 Episode 9

Speakers: Jakub Parusinski & Federico Borsari

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Jakub: Hello and welcome back to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World, a podcast from Message Heard and the Kyiv Independent. I'm Jakub Parusinski. Each week we're going to be analysing the undercurrents of the war in Ukraine, bringing you analysis from across the globe to explain its context and consequences as the war continues.

And this week we're taking a look at one of the most significant military developments of the war. A technology that has changed the nature of fighting in Ukraine and is having a huge impact on the future of military engagements across the globe, drone warfare.

The past two years of fighting in Ukraine have seen a multitude of types of combat. We've had urban warfare in the suburbs of Kyiv. We've had Blitzkriegs with tanks and armoured vehicles. We've had aerial strikes as well as trench warfare in the Donbas reminiscent of what fighting looked like a hundred years ago.

But we've also seen something that tells us about the future, drone warfare. To be clear, that means a lot of different things. Drones range from the kind of quadcopters that you see kids playing with in parks all across the world, to things that look basically like planes and are sent hundreds of kilometres behind enemy lines to disrupt supplies and target depots.

The use of drones has become incredibly creative and terrifying, and we see constant videos of drones dropping grenades on soldiers, even flying into trenches.

But behind that is also a massive scale. By some measures, Ukraine is losing up to 10,000 drones a month. So, we're talking about something that is unprecedented.

And behind all of that is a industry that has now formed and is producing a massive scale of drones, but that was initially built in many cases by volunteers simply taking drones and adapting them to the needs of modern warfare in garages.

But what was once a chaotic collection of individuals trying to build tools for their fighters has grown into something that is reshaping the war in Ukraine and perhaps reshaping warfare to come.

To learn more about Ukraine's flourishing drone industry, I got in touch with Federico Borsari. Federico is a Leonardo fellow at the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Centre of European Policy Analysis.

So, he's a colleague of Sam Greene, who we spoke with earlier this season about Russia. His work looks at Transatlantic Defense and Security dynamics with a focus on unmanned technologies and their military implications. That means drones.

He became really interested in this topic over the past four years and has published a number of fascinating reports on their use in Ukraine that I really recommend checking out.

I started off by asking him about some of the recent Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian soil and what they can tell us about the war.

Hi, Federico, welcome to Power Lines.

Federico: Hi, Jakub. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Jakub: We're speaking on January 23rd, but just two days ago on January 21st, Ukrainian drone strikes hit a Russian gas terminal near St. Petersburg. Attacks like these have become more frequent over the past year. What does that tell us about the place of drones in this war right now and going forward into 2024?

Federico: Yeah, so as you mentioned, the number of attacks in Russia conducted by Ukraine has increased over the past year. And I think what we are seeing is a trend whereby Ukraine is using drones to strike targets deep into Russian territory much more than it was doing in the first year of the invasion.

Even though I would say, the recent strikes actually follow a long series of similar attacks that began in the second half of 2022 and one of these first such attacks took place in June that year. And so, the use of a Chinese commercial Mugin-5 fixed wing drone, which was packed with explosive, and it was used to strike and all … in the Rostov region.

So, it was a similar let's say attack to what happened a couple of days ago near St. Petersburg. And it shows that Ukraine is now able to use drones to deliver strategic effects, basically against Russia and to compensate to certain extent for the lack of long-range missiles.

This is certainly an important development because we know that Ukraine has been asking Western partners and allies for more missiles, but we also know that due to a number of reasons, these missiles have not been delivered in the numbers necessary to tip the balance in favour of Ukraine, at least when it comes to long range capabilities.

So, drones are now very important for Ukraine to strike in depth against Russia. And we know that Ukraine has a lot of drones of this type, like the UJ-22, the Bober or the AQ-400. These are drones that are bigger than commercial quadcopters, for instance, and are used for this purpose.

Jakub: Yeah. So, maybe just to help our audience picture this a little bit, just going over a little bit what we mean by drones, because I think a lot of the time when people talk about drones, people think about these quadcopters that are flying around, maybe providing some footage.

Right now, we're talking about something that looks a lot more like, I guess a small plane or a missile. What other kind of types of drones have been used here?

Federico: Yeah, yeah, that's correct. We have seen a very quick and rapid evolution in the shape and design of drones in the war in Ukraine. And I would say, we can start by saying that actually Ukraine and also Russia did have a lot of drones already at the beginning of the invasion almost two years ago.

But that was based on the military necessity of the two countries at that time. So, no one was expecting drones to become so important for warfare.

So, as the invasion actually started and continued, we have seen an evolution in the design and of the system that have been used by the two sides. And we have a whole kind of different drones today being used and this range from small commercial quadcopters.

So, using four propellers that you can buy on the internet very easily, to first-person view drones that are used to, for instance, strike targets at short range and first-person view drones are quite interesting because they are actually commercial racing drones that are used by hobbyists.

We have seen also a lot of medium-sized fixed wing drones similar to small planes in a way, in design. And that there are many, many different models that I can mention.

The Orlan and Zala drones used by Russia, but also, the Leleka-100 for instance, used by Ukraine or the Shark used by Kyiv forces.

And then we have larger systems. These are of course more expensive. And the Bayraktar TB2, for instance, is one of the most famous. And it has created kind of aura in the public. And also, there is also a song entitled the TB2.

Jakub: Indeed, there's a song about Bayraktar. And I think for a while, even in Ukraine, people were naming their dogs and even in some cases their children by Bayraktar just because of how popular it had become.

But you mentioned something that was quite interesting. So, both Ukraine and Russia had drones coming into the full-scale invasion, but it feels like, or at least it sounds like there has been a revolution in terms of the importance of drones for modern warfare.

Is it more about a question of quality that the drones have evolved? Is it a question of scale of just how widely there are used or even creativity that they are now used in new applications that perhaps people had not thought of before, or as always all of the above?

Federico: Yeah, no, it's a combination of reasons. I would say that at the beginning of the conflict, as I mentioned, so no one was expecting drones to play such an important role.

So, the number of drones incorporated into the two sides' militaries was small or not as big as it is today, of course. But we have seen the importance of drone changing according to the operational needs and the resources of the actors involved into this conflict.

Of course, it's important to remember that the nature of the war in Ukraine is very, very specific. And it's a risk to try to compare Ukraine with other examples. So, every conflict has its own nature and features.

But I would say that of course, the operational needs have changed, and this is why drone have become so important in the conflict for both sides.

But it was Ukraine that initially mastered and pioneered the use of drone compared to Russia. And so, we started to see commercial quadcopters being used in increasing numbers by Ukrainian forces because they needed ways to monitoring the battlefield, monitoring the frontline, and making sure the movement of Russians were known to the command.

And so, they used commercial drones for surveillance, reconnaissance purposes early on during the invasion. And we have seen this trend increasing at fast pace in the following months.

And as Ukraine became so good at using small commercial quadcopters. I'm referring to DJI drones and many other types of commercial quadcopters. Also, Russia started to adapt actually. And so, we have seen also this kind of adaptation trend in the conflict by Russia.

Jakub: Various countermeasures.

Federico: Countermeasures, correct. And also, resources played, of course, a huge role because since the very beginning, Ukraine was in a position of disadvantage compared to Russia.

I mean, not just in terms of the military budget the two countries had before the invasion, but also in terms of the capabilities. So, for Ukraine was basically essential just to use drones to compensate for the lack of other means.

We have seen how good simply Ukraine has become in using drones and innovating in the tactics and techniques its forces use on the battlefield with drones.

Jakub: Looking back at the experience of the military with drones both in the past but also in other theatres, is this something that has been around for a while? Has it already been employed in other conflicts? I'm thinking towards the Middle East, for example.

Federico: Yeah, I mean, of course the use of drones, it's not new. I mean, the United States and also Israel were the two countries that first introduced on crude systems many, many decades ago.

And the systematic use of drones started to appear, I would say in the early 2000 when the United States launched the global war on terror and drones became very useful tool to owned terrorist and remote places because of the endurance and the silence also of drones compared to fighter jets.

But we witnessed a substantial change recently because if at the beginning drones were used just by a handful of countries in very permissive environments without air defences or other threats to drones, and were used just for counter-terrorism operations or counterinsurgency operations.

Now we are seeing drones and all types of drones being used, not just by state actors, but also by non-state actors.

I think it's important to … just to give you an example and a figure of this trend, in 2010, for instance, there were around more or less 60 countries that had a military drone program, and in a matter of 13 years, so today we have that number almost doubled.

So, we are around 115 countries having a military drone program. And this is just, when it comes to state actors. If we also had non-state actors, so terrorist groups or insurgents or even criminal cartels, that number is much higher.

And this means that drones are now in the arsenal of basically every kind of organisation. And we have seen the use of commercial drones for military purposes already in the Middle East, as you mentioned, in Iraq and Syria.

Jakub: Did ISIS use drones?

Federico: ISIS, yes, of course used drones to strike Iraqi security forces and also Western units during its campaign in Iraq and Syria. So, this is telling about the proliferation of drones across the world. So, this is a trend that is only poised to increase and to expand in the future.

Jakub: So, this expansion requires a lot of people to operate them. They're unmanned aerial vehicles, but that's because there's people who are on the ground operating them or at least setting them up, preparing them. How much training goes into producing a drone operator and what does that training look like?

Federico: Yeah, it's not as simple as it might seem, because it requires skills, it requires very competent operators and pilots that must go through a quite difficult training. So, it requires a few weeks at least, of course, depending on how much time do you have every day to train.

And also, depending on the sophistication of the system, because of course, if we talk about training for the use of high-altitude drone, like the MQ-9 Reaper, for instance, which is one of the most famous military drones today, well, that require a lot of time.

So, months of training, if not more, and then continuous experimentation and experience with a platform. But if we talk about quadcopters, then a couple of weeks maybe are enough to have the basics, to pilot the system and to move it around.

And then also comes the ability to read the feedback from their sensor. So, what the camera shows you or how to drop munitions effectively from that kind of drone. And this means more days of training.

But there are huge differences based on the sophistication. And it's not just the pilot, it's also the operator which sometimes is a second person that helps the pilot actually to navigate the environment and use the feedback from the sensor of the drone.

Jakub: That's very interesting. And coming back to something that you mentioned earlier, which was specifically about the countermeasures that are put in place. So, if we look over the past two years, we've seen the incredible rise in the use of drones initially led by Ukraine. And now my sense is that it's probably a bit more balanced. Russia is also using drones quite extensively.

But also, there are more and more defences put in place against drones. And I think one thing that it's important for people to realise is that there's this image of a drone operator as being a relatively safe job when it comes to the military.

You're not in the trenches, you're not sort of storming any positions, but actually it turns out that there's quite a lot of casualties in those specialties as well. So, could you tell us a little bit about what the difficulties are that both drone operators and drones themselves are running into?

Federico: Yeah, absolutely. Just to give you an example, based on the information that we have, and also talking with a lot of people that have been in Ukraine or even with Ukrainian personnel directly, immediately, they mentioned that being a drone operator is definitely not a safe role in the military because drone operators and pilots are one of the first targets Russians are looking for when they start their attacks or their operations.

So, this means that that type of roles in the military are becoming more and more important, especially not just for Ukraine. I guess also for Russia now given the number of drones that Russia is using.

But this means that it's not just about the training for using the technology, it's also about the training on how to conceal, how to hidden in the environment to make sure you are not located by the enemy.

And at the same time, this also of course requires a lot of countermeasures and ways to avoid being detected. So, it's not just about electronic warfare, it's also about discipline in the electromagnetic magnetic spectrum.

So, make sure not to give away your position or make sure the system harden it against jamming, spoofing and other electronic warfare techniques that can reveal your location and make you a target for the enemy.

Countermeasures, of course, can be of different types. You have active countermeasures, you have passive countermeasures, so concealing if you use nets or other obstacles to protect your position, it's another passive countermeasure.

And then you have active, of course, countermeasure, such as the use of anti-drone guns or electronic warfare systems to protect your position against enemy drones.

Jakub: What is an anti-drone gun?

Federico: Well, it's a weapon that uses radio frequency jamming or spoofing to disrupt the communication signal between the drone and its operator, or also to disrupt the navigation signal of the drone in order to basically down it or make it uncontrollable for the pilot.

Then you have anti anti-drone guns that use microwave to damage the circuit of the drone. So, you have many different types of country guns, but these two are the most common types.

Jakub: I mean, this is absolutely fascinating. And if you think about sort of this idea that drones represent the future of warfare or a piece of that, certainly using microwave and electromagnetic tools to sort of disrupt certainly fits into that image.

Behind sort of the scenes of all of the operators who are working on the front lines, concealing themselves, trying to pierce through the countermeasures of their opponents lies quite a substantial industrial machine.

And I think one of the big things that has appeared over the past two years in Ukraine certainly is quite a vast drone industry, I think quite fragmented. So, there's a lot of different pieces to it. Some are bigger, some are very sort of volunteer driven.

Could you tell us a little bit about sort of what that drone industry looks like and perhaps how it compares to the Russian one because I imagine that they might be quite different.

Federico: No, indeed it is different. You are absolutely right, and the gap between the two cases has increased, especially in the past few months as Russia started to really centralise the effort of volunteering organisations in Russia to provide drones to the military.

But coming back to Ukraine, I would say, it has been in the making, it has been an evolving phenomenon, an evolving industry, I would say. And before the start of the invasion, there weren't many drone companies in Ukraine.

There were a few, they were building drones sometimes for the military, sometimes for commercial or agricultural purposes. But at the same time, it was not a scale production.

It was not a big production of drones before the invasion. Then all of a sudden with the military that needed a lot of drones, many companies repurposed their production and started to provide more and more drones to the military.

And in the same time, a lot of volunteering efforts and civil society organisations started to fund drones for the military buying them off the shelf or sourcing components from abroad and assembling them in Ukraine.

In this overall picture, we have today around 200 companies that currently produce germs or drone components for the Ukrainian military. And according to data that I have compiled together with my CEPA colleague, Skip Davis, who is also the co-author of a report that we have recently published for CEPA on drone warfare in Ukraine.

We have classified more than 50 different drones being used by Ukraine alone. And this number continues to grow because it doesn't account for customised systems that are assembled even on the frontline.

So, there have been of course efforts by the government of Ukraine to optimise and to improve this kind of picture and this kind of structure when it comes to drone production.

And there have been initiatives like the Army of drones, which is a joint initiative of the digital transformation ministry and the governmental United24 fundraising platform, for instance, this was launched in July 2022. And it came to really bring together funders and developers to create a more unified framework and an architecture to produce.

So, as you mentioned, you are right, even though there is this centralization effort by the government at the same time, there is a continued emergence of a patchwork of passionate grassroots organisations that are producing drones directly for units within the military.

This is interesting because you have organisations or initiatives like Angry Birds, for instance, which has raised over $800,000 for FPV drones alone. So, you have these two parallel, let's say, directions and initiatives, and it's very crucial for Ukraine to try to optimise as much as it can these effort, because otherwise you risk to have a lot of duplication and waste of resources to a certain extent.

So, this is one side. On the other side, such a huge number of terms means that it becomes much more difficult for the Russians to counter all of them because they are operating on many different frequencies. They have different characteristics.

And so, it's more difficult for the Russian air defences to know what drones they are dealing with, for instance.

Jakub: That's interesting.

Federico: Yeah, this is very interesting, I think, and just to give you some data on Ukraine, for instance, just in 2023, the Ukrainian government allocated $1.8 billion just for the drone industry last year, basically.

And in 2024, it plans to acquire 1 million drones. So, this means, 1 million drones is a huge number. These, of course, are mostly expandable drones or treatable drones that are used one time because they are kamikaze drone, basically.

So, one way attack system that are directed against the target, and that's it. But this is telling because it gives you an idea of the scale of drone warfare currently in Ukraine.

And according to some estimates, Ukraine is losing to Russian air defences and electronic warfare up to 10,000 drones per month. And I think this number is now even higher because this estimate was based on data from last year. So, today probably is double that number.

And just to conclude the comparison with Russia, it's important because we know that Russia, as I mentioned before, is centralising the initiative of volunteers and private organisations to provide drones to the military.

And so, this means that the state is behind this initiative and it's pouring funds, it's pouring also infrastructure and production lines, for instance, for this organisation to increase their capacity. And this means it could give Russia the upper hand, for instance, against Ukraine in 2024.

So, this means Ukraine needs to really increase its centralization efforts as well. It needs to improve some of the initiatives it's doing.

Jakub: It's fascinating the extent to which sort of the Russian and the Ukrainian approach are emblematic of both countries and how different they are. You've got Ukraine on the one side, which seems like it's very bottom up.

It's a large number of people who are maybe duplicating their efforts, but that are quite passionate. They're doing their own thing. It's quite creative, but probably a bit chaotic and it's difficult to scale.

And then you've got Russia on the other side, which is coming at it quite top down, trying to centralise things where you essentially get scale out of that and you can start to operate on a very high level, but maybe you get the kind of problems that come with standardisation.

And it's really fascinating that you mentioned that electronic warfare and being able to counter a specific model is something that Ukraine is benefiting from. And I imagine for Russia, that's the part where it's a little bit more difficult.

And you mentioned that quite a lot of the units themselves are buying the drones. So, I imagine that the amount of money that the government is allocating while you need to add what the volunteers and sort of the units themselves are buying on top of that, is there also any Western support that's coming to Ukraine's aid?

Federico: Yes, there has been quite a substantial support from Western partners to Ukraine, not just on the drone side, but overall, for many other military equipment and capabilities.

But yes, when it comes to drones, I mean many Western countries and European companies as well have provided a lot of different drone systems to Ukraine.

Mainly, I would say small and fixed wing tactical drones that are used for intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance purposes. Germany, for instance, has provided a lot of this type of drones. Poland has provided loitering munitions.

The U.S. has also provided a lot of loitering munitions. The Switchblade family for instance is quite famous produced by air environment in the U.S.

And also, the secretive Phoenix Ghost. It's another model that the U.S. have provided Ukraine with, and these are important efforts, but we know that the needs on the battlefield are increasing in terms of quantities that are required by frontline units to deal with Russia.

And also because Russia is scaling up its attacks now. So, this means that given the lack of conventional artillery for Ukraine, drones are becoming more and more important.

And I would say in this case, first-person view drones, which are the tiniest models that have been seen in Ukraine so far but are becoming deadlier by the day because they are literally very, very easy to manoeuvre.

They are very also easy to use. They are cheap. They can be produced at scale. They are not too difficult to assemble with components. And you can attach all kind of different war ads and munition to this type of drone.

And they are flown against the target directly through the input of the pilot who sees basically the video field from its goggle connected to the drone.

So, these are systems that are mostly sort from China. But now that China's restricted drones’ components actually exports especially to Ukraine, it becomes more complicated for Ukraine to have necessary material to assemble terms at scale.

And this is why Ukraine is trying to increase the imports from Europe, from other countries as well to compensate for that.

Jakub: So, there's Western support in terms of financially helping Ukraine sort of scale up its production, is there also support in terms of innovation, whether it's in terms of materials or replacing Chinese components?

I imagine that Western partners might have quite a bit of know-how, when it comes to electronic warfare, or perhaps I'm wrong, but is that something that we're seeing at scale?

Federico: Yes, that's right. Western countries have provided also multiple counter U.S. systems and advice on how to defeat Russian drones. We don't have specific numbers or date on this, I would say.

But we know that many Western and European countries actually have, have delivered counter U.S. technology to Ukraine, both in terms of portable systems that can be used at the tactical level.

So basically, on the trenches along the trench line in the east to bigger system that, that are used to protect fixed infrastructure, for instance. So, it's always a cat and mouse game when it comes to counter U.S.

And at the beginning of the conflict of the invasion, Ukraine had the upper end when it comes to drone technology, was able to evade Russian electronic warfare.

But as you know Russia started to deploy more and more electronic warfare capabilities in Ukraine, in theatre then for Ukraine, it was more and more difficult to fly drones along the front line, but the signal was constantly spoofed and jammed.

And so, they had to adapt, and this is how innovation works. And Ukrainian engineers have been able to adapt their drones to protect them from jamming by simply modifying the inner structure, the components that have been used or changing the software sometimes.

And the same time also Russia tried to increase and improve its electronic warfare techniques. So, it's always a cat and mouse game as I mentioned, that is changing really by the day, I would say. And we'll see constantly this phenomenon going on in the conflict.

Jakub: Looking sort of internationally. Where would you expect this kind of drone warfare to surface in the future? And how might it kind of adapt?

Obviously, I assume that we're hoping that in as few places as possible but looking at the state of the world today and being a little bit more realistic it's quite likely to show up in different places.

And I'm thinking now about for example, in the Middle East, between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there's already a fair history of drone warfare between the two. Are there other hotspots that are likely to see the emergence and growth of drone warfare?

Federico: Well, I think so. I think, the overall trajectory of drone warfare I mean, is now quite straightforward. And we will likely see drones playing a huge role in future conflicts.

Drones are basically very important, if not fundamental for today's military operations and their role, it's poised to increase exponentially, I would say in the next decades.

And use of drones has really changed also the way military operations are conducted, and especially in Ukraine. I wouldn't apply these lessons in the same way for every conflict, of course, because every conflict, as I mentioned at the beginning of this recording, is different.

But at the same time, we know that drones have changed quite a lot in the operational picture. And of course, what we are seeing today is that drones are cheaper than fighter jets, and they don't have the same capabilities for now.

But as technology improves, we will see more sophisticated drones to conduct operations that today are conducted by fighter jets and meaning, long range strike, I mean air to air combat.

So, we are seeing an evolution in the capabilities of drones. And this means that as the technology expands, the technology becomes more sophisticated, but also more available on the market.

The prices are decreasing to a certain extent for specific types of drones. So, we will see a proliferation of these capabilities across the world and more and more countries will use drones for their military operations. That's for sure.

And this is not just about drones in the air domain. We are seeing similar trend in the naval or maritime domain and all also on the ground because we have seen how Ukraine has been able basically to use drones or crude naval vessels, basically and crude vessels to change the operational picture in the Black Sea.

Russia isn't able anymore to use its Black Sea fleet as it did at the beginning of the conflict because of the presence of kamikaze vessels used by Ukraine to disrupt naval operations by Russia and to threat the Black Sea fleet and to force Russia to move ships away from Crimea because of the threat from these drones.

So, this has been a huge victory for Ukraine. This is an example that many countries will look to when it comes to naval operations, because I mean, Ukraine is now able to export its grain again to control the shores of the Black Sea when it was not able to do so at the beginning of the conflict.

So, and this was thanks to drones. And coming back to your example of Saudi Arabia and Iran. Yeah, well, I mean, we are already seeing how Iranian drone have wreak havoc on Ukraine's infrastructure and territory.

And I think this is the most recent example, but we have seen also Iran using drones against Saudi Arabia oil infrastructure in 2019 and in 2020 as well.

And this trend has now changed in that same region with the Houthi group using Iranian drone and Iranian provided technology to strike merchant vessels in the Red Sea and in the Persian Gulf.

So, this trend is not surprising, and drones will continue to play a major role, and this will only expand in the coming months, I would say.

Jakub: Just to sort of close things off, I'd love to get your thoughts on what does Ukraine's future look like within this sort of perspective.

On the one hand, you've got a lot of experience, know-how, industrial capabilities to produce drones.

On the other hand, it sounds like drones are relatively cheap to make pretty much anywhere where you have enough sort of skilled knowledge base and industrial capacity, and they need to be adapted quite a bit to local circumstances.

Does Ukraine have the capacity to become a drone hub and to keep that position for a while, or is that something that's more likely to be temporary?

Federico: No, I don't think it's temporary. I think Ukraine actually is now a major power when it comes to drone technology, not just because of I would say the capability of producing drones at scale, but also because Ukraine has now the experience, has a huge experience in using this technology.

And this is a very important aspect because sometimes we tend to look at the impact of technology considering how capable is the technology and how sophisticated it is.

But technology is only half the story basically. Because you also need to integrate it into your first structure. You also need to incorporate the technology in your units and make sure you have the proper concept of operations and doctrine to exploit the potential of the technology.

So, this means that for Ukraine, it's just the beginning. I think in terms of drone technology, they have a huge experience on how they can use drones.

And so, what it needs to do is to really centralise a little bit more the efforts in terms of production, in terms of channelling the funds for the right systems and the right projects without the risk of duplications. Because of course you have many type of drones as I mentioned, but at the same time, there are many similarities.

And so, how it's possible to best combine the technology according to the operational needs without wasting resources. So, that's a question that Ukrainian policy makers and experts need to answer to.

And I think that for the future and for the coming months, it's very important for Ukraine to continue to use FPV drones because these are basically compensating for the lack of artillery.

But at the same time, it would be a mistake to bathe only on drones’ technology to achieve victory or results on the battlefield.

You also need to integrate drones with your let's say, in a broader military architecture where you have different type of capabilities that work in synergy. And I'm referring to artillery. I'm referring to electronic warfare. I'm referring to commanding control.

And Ukraine has provided us with a lot of good insights and examples on how to best do it doing it. So, what Ukraine needs to do is to continue along this path and also to push Western allies as much as it can fight artillery, I think munitions and missiles, because I mean, for now, drones cannot yet replace missiles in terms of the impact they deliver on the battlefield.

So, I'm not saying drones will not be able to do it because we know the technology's evolving and it's already there when it comes to long range strikes. And Ukraine has shown us that it can do it against Russia already today.

But to do it at scale and to deliver effects that are robust, you need missiles and I think here is a responsibility of Western countries and Europeans and all Western allies to provide this kind of capabilities to Ukraine because drones alone are not game changers. This is something I tend to repeat when I speak about drones.

Jakub: Thank you so much Federico, this has been absolutely fascinating and I'm sure that we could continue this conversation for a lot longer. Thank you so much for joining us on Power Lines today. It was an absolutely fascinating discussion.

Federico: Thank you so much for having me and looking forward to the next time.

[Music Playing]

Jakub: Thanks so much for listening to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World, and a big thanks to Federico for his time speaking with us.

We'll be back in two weeks’ time with the final episode of this season where we'll be looking at the macroeconomic challenges that Ukraine will have to deal with in the year ahead.

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