Ukrainian military personnel arrived in Denmark this week to share their unique knowledge of drone warfare with Danish colleagues. The move comes following a series of incidents in the skies above Danish airports and other strategic sites involving suspicious drone activity that may be linked to Russia.
Denmark is not the only NATO country looking to learn from Ukraine’s experience. When Russian drones penetrated Polish airspace in early September, Poland’s response included plans to establish joint anti-drone training together with the Ukrainian military. Meanwhile, The Times reported earlier this year that Ukrainian military instructors had been dispatched to the UK to train British forces in the use of drones on the modern battlefield.
Ukraine is also increasingly recognized as a global leader in the development of drone technologies. The country boasts a rapidly expanding domestic drone industry that has been turbo-charged by more than three and a half years of full-scale war with Russia. This has created a fertile climate for relentless innovation and made it possible to test new drone designs in combat conditions on a daily basis.
The results speak for themselves. Ukrainian drones have excelled along the front lines of the conflict and have allowed Kyiv to turn the tide in the Battle of the Black Sea. Far beyond Ukraine’s borders, the country’s growing fleet of bomber drones now routinely strike targets deep inside the Russian Federation.
Many partner countries are understandably eager to incorporate Ukrainian drone technologies into their own defense doctrines. Britain recently confirmed that it will begin mass producing drones developed in collaboration with Ukraine as part of efforts to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank against the threat of Russian incursions. A Ukrainian delegation reportedly set off for the United States in late September to begin discussions on a potentially major drone production cooperation agreement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is well aware of his country’s rising military profile and sees the current mission to Denmark as a potential model for a more comprehensive approach to Ukrainian drone warfare training initiatives with other European countries. “Our experience, our specialists, and our technologies can become a key element in Europe’s future Drone Wall initiative,” he commented on September 30.
Ukraine’s burgeoning reputation as a key player in the field of drone warfare reflects the dramatic shifts currently taking place in Europe’s security architecture. Until quite recently, Ukraine was treated as a military minnow struggling to adopt NATO standards. Strikingly, it is now NATO that is seeking to adopt Ukrainian standards.
The emergence of Ukraine as a drone superpower is only one aspect of the country’s remarkable recent transformation into a major military force. The Ukrainian army is also at the cutting edge of innovation in defense tech sectors including electronic warfare, robotic systems, and cyber security. It came as no surprise that the recent Defense Tech Valley industry showcase event in western Ukraine attracted at least 5000 participants from over 50 countries, with Western companies pledging more than $100 million in investments.
The technological progress made by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2022 is certainly eye-catching, but the country’s human capital remains its greatest asset. Today’s Ukraine boasts Europe’s second-largest army, with almost one million men and women currently in uniform and a large reserve of battle-hardened combat veterans. This dwarfs anything else on the continent, even before Ukraine’s unrivaled experience of modern warfare is taken into account. With the United States seeking to reduce its role in European security, the Ukrainian military is now the biggest single barrier between an expansionist Russia and an unprepared Europe.
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Ukraine’s newfound status as one of Europe’s leading military powers is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare. It is nightmare entirely of his own making. Indeed, this military metamorphosis would have been inconceivable without the impetus of Russian imperial aggression.
When Putin began the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Kyiv had only a few thousand combat-ready troops at its disposal. At first, things went according to plan for Moscow, with minimal Ukrainian resistance to the seizure of Crimea. However, Russian efforts to push further into mainland Ukraine then sparked a wave of popular resistance, with thousands of ordinary Ukrainians forming improvised volunteer battalions to block the Kremlin advance. This epic grassroots response saved Ukraine and laid the foundations for the subsequent expansion and modernization of the Ukrainian army.
Despite this stunning setback, Putin refused to accept defeat. With his initial plans to extinguish Ukrainian statehood thwarted, the Kremlin dictator made the fateful decision to escalate further and began preparing to launch the full-scale invasion of February 2022.
On the morning of the invasion, Putin identified the “demilitarization” of Ukraine as one of his two key war aims. This made perfect sense. After all, in order to effectively subjugate Ukraine, it would first be necessary to render the country defenseless. However, it is now abundantly clear that Putin’s plan to demilitarize Ukraine has backfired disastrously.
Russia’s invasion has spurred the creation of a formidable military machine in Ukraine that has quickly come to occupy a pivotal role in European security. In capitals across Europe, there is a growing sense of recognition that the Ukrainian army is indispensable for the defense of the continent and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Kyiv’s partners now have an obvious and urgent self-interest in supporting Ukraine’s defense industry and financing the Ukrainian war effort. Indeed, the choice currently facing European leaders is disarmingly simple: Support Ukraine today or face Russia tomorrow.
With Russian troops still advancing and Russian drones and missiles pummeling Ukrainian cities, it remains far too early to declare Putin’s invasion a failure. Nevertheless, it is already difficult to conceive of any outcome that would leave Ukraine undefended and at Moscow’s mercy. Instead, the Ukrainian army is likely to emerge from the war stronger than ever and fully capable of defending the country’s place within the European community of nations. Putin had hoped to disarm and decapitate the Ukrainian state, but his self-defeating demilitarization campaign has inadvertently created the fiercely independent Ukraine he feared most of all.
Peter Dickinson is editor of the ’s UkraineAlert service.
The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the , its staff, or its supporters.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.
Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin waits for the arrival of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko before their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia September 26, 2025. (REUTERS/Ramil Sitdikov/Pool)
