For decades, heavy armor remained the foundation of global security. Western military doctrines relied on tanks, fighter jets, and artillery systems that took years to develop and cost a lot. However, Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine changed this classic concept.
Today, the battlefield is dominated not only by the one with thicker armor, but by the one whose code works faster. The transformation from classic industrial cycles to software-defined defense is happening right now, and Ukraine is the driver of these changes.
Traditional industrial capacities have proven unable to quickly scale up the production of ammunition and heavy equipment. For example, the German concern Rheinmetall estimates its own capacity to supply 155 mm artillery shells to Ukraine for 2026 at only about 100,000 units, which covers barely 8% of the minimum annual requirement of Ukrainian forces, which stands at 1.2 million rounds.
This imbalance between industrial capacity and real frontline needs leads to a shift in focus toward more affordable means.
In modern warfare, the center of gravity of defense deterrence is moving from industrial heavy equipment assembly lines into the realm of artificial intelligence and continuous frontline algorithm iteration. The effectiveness of a tank, an artillery system, or an aircraft depends on the speed of digital control, optical target acquisition, and electronic warfare jamming protection algorithms.
The key catalyst for this technological adaptation was the formation of the Brave1 civil-military defense cluster, which combined the capabilities of the state, defense forces, and private tech startups into a flexible innovation ecosystem. Thanks to this cooperation, the time from concept inception to testing and deployment on the frontline has been reduced from years to a few weeks or even days.
This speed has been particularly pronounced in the field of electronic warfare (EW) countermeasures. Since Russia actively uses EW, this poses a challenge for Ukrainian FPV drones. While experienced operators had hit rates of 30–50%, for novices this figure dropped to 10%. The response of Ukrainian engineers was the mass introduction of machine vision and automatic homing algorithms, which restored and increased target destruction efficiency up to 80%.
The development of software for defense systems is unfolding in several strategic directions.
In the long-range strike systems segment, autonomous platforms with a radius of up to 300 km carrying kamikaze drones have been introduced. The use of the SmartPilot onboard complex based on visual-inertial navigation and LiDAR ensures complete independence from GPS signals and EW assets at a mission cost of about $10,000, which is hundreds of times cheaper than classic cruise missiles.
Simultaneously, automated AI-enabled anti-drone gun mounts protect against attack UAVs and fiber-optic drones require only a single button press from the operator to confirm target destruction, as well as Litavr-type interceptors with an automated destruction cycle of up to 95% and speed indicators exceeding 400 km/h.
Another critical direction is drone swarm technology, embodied in software complexes like Styx from the company Swarmer. The traditional limitation of human capabilities allows a single operator to control no more than 3–5 UAVs simultaneously. The use of AI makes it possible to unite dozens and hundreds of aerial and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) into a single autonomous network. In such a network, each drone independently calculates its route, distributes targets, and coordinates actions with other units, while the human performs exclusively the role of upper-level control and strike confirmation.
The central element of Ukraine's combat space digital architecture is the DELTA situational awareness and combat management system, developed with the participation of the Ministry of Defense Innovation Center, Aerorozvidka NGO, and the private sector. DELTA ensures real-time data consolidation from diverse sources, such as satellite imagery, UAV video feeds, acoustic sensors, and electronic intelligence. Thanks to automated object recognition and information processing, the identification time of opposing side objects has been reduced to 2.2 seconds, which is an advantage for targeting the enemy.
The DELTA system has proven its full integration with NATO assets during large-scale tests and military exercises. During the NATO C-UAS TIE trials in the Netherlands, the Ukrainian system demonstrated the exchange of air and ground situation data for over 60 anti-drone systems from 22 countries. Compatibility with Link 16 tactical data protocols and the use of the secure UA DRONE ID protocol confirmed the capability of Ukrainian software to become the baseline platform for the Alliance's joint operations.
The advantages of the software-defined strategy was demonstrated at the NATO Hedgehog 2025 simulation exercises in Estonia. A group of 10 Ukrainian unmanned system operators, armed with the DELTA digital loop and strike UAVs, simulated the destruction of 17 units of heavy armored vehicles and routed two NATO battalions in a matter of hours.
These showed the vulnerability of classic units operating under slow bureaucratic coordination procedures amidst total aerospace transparency and fast digital fire coordination.
This forces NATO allies to adopt Ukrainian developments and change their own defense concepts. One of the largest-scale initiatives is the "Drone Wall" project, designed to protect the eastern flank of the European Union from aerial threats. The main challenge of this project is creating unified software capable of integrating hundreds of diverse sensors and interception systems into a secured network. As confirmed by international experts, Ukrainian DELTA and Virazh systems are viewed as the baseline prototypes for this architecture.
In addition, the Ukrainian model demonstrates a change in defense economics. The use of cheap acoustic detection sensors (such as Zvuk with a 5–15 km radius) and interceptor drones costing $1,500–6,000 per unit is economical, unlike using Patriot air defense missiles ($3.7–4 million per shot) or fighter jets ($22,000–85,000 per flight hour).
Alliance countries and other technological states are already integrating these approaches into their own defense-industrial complexes. South Korea abandoned massive metal screens for K1 and K2 tanks in favor of lightweight mesh FPV-drone protection systems created using the Ukrainian model. Sweden, through the Saab concern, is actively developing its own drone swarm software designed for testing at Arctic Strike exercises. Great Britain is revising its defense doctrine, planning to bring the share of unmanned and robotic systems in the army to 80%. At the same time, the cooperation of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine with the American company Palantir within the Brave1 Dataroom project allows training artificial intelligence algorithms on millions of real combat footage records, creating the foundation for fully autonomous air defense systems of the future.
The vector of global deterrence development is determined by flexible civil-military innovation ecosystems capable of processing combat data in real-time, training artificial intelligence, and adapting autonomous systems to battlefield changes. Countries that are the first to integrate this approach into their own defense structure will gain an advantage in the confrontation of the future.
