By David Kirichenko
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 shocked the worldwide order. What shocked the world much more was Ukraine’s skill to withstand. Whereas many within the West believed Ukraine would solely maintain out for a number of weeks, the warfare has now entered its fourth 12 months. Ukraine has relied on agility and innovation – particularly in its use of drones and battlefield know-how – to fend off Russian forces. This technological edge has prolonged past land warfare to the ocean.
Over the previous few years, Ukraine’s rising use of naval drones has pushed either side to quickly adapt, accelerating the race for countermeasures and maritime innovation. NATO would do effectively to review Ukraine’s strategy because it prepares for the way forward for warfare at sea. Rear Admiral James Parkin, the Royal Navy’s director of growth, notes that in 28 maritime battles, the bigger fleet received all however three. Parkin believed that bigger fleets win, however Ukraine has modified that paradigm, for now. The way forward for naval warfare is right here and Ukraine is demonstrating what the long run seems to be like.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief and present ambassador to the U.Ok., said, “I’ve repeated many instances that the character of recent warfare has modified and continues to vary.” Zaluzhnyi added, “The character of recent warfare is way from what NATO is now working.”
Ukraine’s Naval Classes
On the outset of the warfare, Ukraine’s navy was nearly nonexistent, having misplaced most of its fleet when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Its solely main warship, the frigate Hetman Sahaidachny, was scuttled by Ukrainian forces in February 2022 to forestall its seize. But by means of uneven techniques – naval drones, coastal missile strikes, and aerial assaults – Ukraine has reworked the Black Sea battlefield, forcing Russia into retreat and reclaiming strategic management of key waters round Ukraine’s coast.
Serhii Kuzan, chair of the assume tank Ukrainian Safety and Cooperation Heart and a former adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Protection, defined that even earlier than the full-scale invasion, Ukraine understood it couldn’t match Russia in typical naval power.1 Because of this, it adopted an uneven technique targeted on coastal missile programs, small vessels, and air assist. After 2022, sea drones have been added to this idea and have since develop into the navy’s main strike weapon at sea. These unmanned programs emerged out of necessity, filling the hole left by the absence of a conventional fleet.
Ukraine is now rebuilding its navy round a fleet of unmanned floor autos (USVs), making sea drones central to its maritime technique. When Russia tried to blockade Ukrainian transport, Kyiv responded swiftly with sea drone strikes. Even after the Russian Navy retreated from occupied Crimea to the protection of its mainland ports, Ukrainian USVs continued to harass and injury its fleet.
Following the ocean drone offensive in 2023, Former US Navy Admiral James George Stavridis famous, “We’re at a juncture in navy evolution akin to the game-changers like Agincourt or Pearl Harbor. Costly manned floor warships now face existential threats from inexpensive drones.” The Ukrainians issued a warning in August 2023 that “There are not any extra secure waters or peaceable harbors for you within the Black and Azov Seas.” The Russians finally discovered to heed that warning and hid from Ukraine’s sea drones. In keeping with Roy Gardiner, an open supply weapons researcher and former Canadian Armed Forces officer, “These uneven victories have pressured the relocation of the Russian Fleet to the japanese Black Sea, and broke the blockade to reopen the important grain export routes.”
Ukraine’s drones have even achieved the unprecedented. By January 2025, modified Magura V5 sea drones armed with heat-seeking missiles shot down two Russian Mi-8 helicopters and broken a 3rd off the coast of Crimea – marking the primary time a naval drone efficiently downed enemy plane. In Might 2025, Ukraine shocked the world through the use of sea drones geared up with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, every price about $300,000 to shoot down two Russian fighter jets, every price $50 million. The Ukrainian sea drones themselves are price solely a number of hundred thousand {dollars}. HI Sutton, a naval warfare skilled wrote, “The success of Ukraine’s uncrewed floor drones (USVs) can’t be overstated. They’re rewriting the principles of naval warfare.”
Ukrainian forces are more and more adapting these drones for multi-role capabilities, equipping them with missile launchers and superior payloads. Ukraine has successfully turned its USVs into robotic drone carriers able to launching explosive FPV drones at Russian coastal targets. One in every of Ukraine’s newest sea drones, can launch as much as 4 quadcopter First-Individual View (FPV) drones and should carry naval mines, enabling advanced multi-phase assaults. Ukrainian intelligence not too long ago introduced that their sea drones have been upgraded to hold over a ton of explosives and may now function throughout distances exceeding 1,000 kilometers (about 621 miles), considerably increasing their strike vary and lethality throughout the Black Sea. “We utterly blocked the Russian Black Sea fleet within the water space close to the port of Novorossiysk,” mentioned Kyrylo Budanov, the pinnacle of Ukraine’s protection intelligence (HUR). He added that mentioned the Russian fleet can now not come out to the open waters.
“The price of USVs equivalent to Magura V5 and Sea Child is about $250,000, which is cheap relative to their vital tactical and strategic success,” mentioned Gardiner. “With naval targets gone from the western Black Sea, some Ukrainian USVs have transitioned to FPV carriers and launched profitable assaults on a number of radars and air protection programs in Crimea.”
In keeping with Kuzan, sea drones have emerged as certainly one of Ukraine’s handiest instruments towards the Russian fleet. Ukrainian unmanned programs have struck Russian ships and boats 21 instances, with 10 vessels confirmed destroyed and several other others severely broken. Because of this, Russian naval forces have misplaced the initiative at sea and at the moment are largely confined to working close to the ports of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea and Novorossiysk on the Russian mainland. Kuzan highlighted that these drone strikes have additionally enabled Ukraine to reopen the grain hall regardless of Russia’s withdrawal from the settlement, successfully restoring maritime commerce.
Regardless of Ukraine’s spectacular string of successes at sea, Russia has begun mounting a more practical protection. In keeping with Ukrainian Navy Commander Oleksiy Neizhpapa, Moscow has constructed a multi-layered system round key areas like Sevastopol Bay, together with long-, medium-, and short-range detection zones designed to establish and destroy incoming sea drones. “Prior to now, we may simply enter Sevastopol Bay with our drones,” Neizhpapa mentioned.
“Now it’s not so easy as a result of the enemy has established a tiered protection system.” In response, Ukraine is working to improve its unmanned programs with extra superior weaponry and modular designs that may adapt to quickly evolving threats. Russia has tailored however by bringing out its ships into the open sea, which means that the success price of Ukraine’s sea drones has additionally dropped. In keeping with Gardiner, “Naval vessels have been geared up with thermal imaginative and prescient programs to higher fight Ukrainian USV nighttime assaults.”
The naval drone warfare can also be changing into extra symmetric: Russian forces are starting to deploy their very own sea drones. “They’re gearing up for it,” Neizhpapa warned, “so we’re getting ready not solely to deploy drones towards the enemy but in addition to defend towards them.”
Gregory Falco, an autonomous programs and cybersecurity skilled at Cornell College, commented on the design stability between sophistication and scale. In keeping with Falco,
“The ocean is a extremely dynamic surroundings so it has been a harder area to design strong and dependable programs for. Given Ukraine’s people-constrained navy, they’ve relied on unmanned programs which Ukraine has adeptly made price effectively and due to this fact largely disposable. The sophistication of this know-how proper now’s much less vital than its scale and value. Scale for drones is what is going to assist win wars.”
The warfare within the Black Sea reveals how uneven innovation can shift the stability of energy. Regardless of having no conventional fleet, Ukraine has dealt main blows to a superior naval drive utilizing low-cost, adaptable know-how. Dmitry Gorenburg, a researcher with the Heart for Naval Analyses, remarked that,
“Russia has been pressured to erect obstacles for harbor safety, which have been comparatively efficient. However Ukraine confirmed that it may nonetheless injury Russian ships at sea. Sooner or later, the associated fee asymmetry between low-cost drones and costly ships will imply that even a low success price will show extremely damaging to naval forces, together with Russia. The benefit of getting a strong navy will thus be considerably decreased.”
Nonetheless, Kuzan stresses that drones alone can’t present full management over maritime house. A balanced navy stays important. Trying forward, Ukraine’s future fleet will doubtless mix Ada-class corvettes, missile boats, and coastal protection programs, with sea drones persevering with to function the primary offensive drive.
Adaptability and Know-how
Furthermore, each China and Russia “are surging forward within the realm of small drones, whereas the USA strikes at a comparatively glacial tempo,” the Trendy Conflict Institute at West Level famous in a March 2024 report. Deborah Fairlamb, founding companion of Ukraine-focused enterprise capital agency Inexperienced Flag Ventures mentioned, “I nonetheless consider that the West actually doesn’t perceive how a lot warfare has modified.” Fairlamb identified the speedy technological developments on the battlefield, elevated mass manufacturing, and the reducing price of efficient weaponry – equivalent to $500 drones that may take out a $5m tank, a $30m radar system.”
Now, the U.S. Navy is embracing unmanned programs with urgency, spurred by classes from Ukraine’s naval drone success and asymmetrical threats just like the Houthis within the Crimson Sea. Ukraine is already working carefully with synthetic intelligence (AI) and is quickly reshaping fashionable warfare, significantly by means of machine imaginative and prescient in drones and floor platforms, permitting for autonomous focusing on. Ukraine is on the forefront of this transformation, with over 90 % of AI navy applied sciences coming from home builders, together with swarming drone programs.
Ukraine is putting innovation on the coronary heart of its protection technique, leveraging homegrown applied sciences to remain forward on the battlefield. Mykhailo Fedorov, the nation’s minister of digital transformation, emphasised this strategy in a speech on the The NATO-Ukraine Protection Innovators Discussion board:
“In Ukraine, we struggle with improvements made in Ukraine. It’s a fixed work, a steady R&D course of, fixing logistical issues with parts and on the lookout for options 5 steps forward. Ukraine is already one of the best R&D middle for any innovation. Immediately we get a know-how for testing, and tomorrow we’ll scale it lots of of instances.”
Ukraine’s protection tech sector is accelerating quickly beneath the strain of warfare, driving battlefield innovation in drones, robotics, AI, digital warfare, and demining programs. Platforms just like the government-backed Brave1 fast-track promising applied sciences – by offering funding, testing, and streamlined certification, bypassing the gradual procurement programs frequent within the West. “I all the time inform our American and different worldwide companions: in case your drone hasn’t been examined in Ukraine, it’s nonetheless only a toy,” mentioned Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian member of parliament.
Economics of Conflict
Trendy warfare is now a battle of economics and scale, the place the important thing metric is now not troop numbers, however the associated fee and amount of programs deployed. Low-cost, one-way drones costing beneath $1,000 have develop into central to the combating in Ukraine and elsewhere, able to destroying far costlier targets. As Christian Brose famous in The Kill Chain, U.S. navy dominance has lengthy relied on pricey platforms like tanks, stealth fighters, and plane carriers. First-person view drones invert that mannequin, utilizing low-cost, sensible, networked machines to problem the standard military-industrial advanced. Because the U.S. continues to depend on high-cost programs, adversaries like China, Russia, and even non-state actors are leveraging mass-produced, cheap drones and missiles to inflict outsized injury at a fraction of the associated fee.
Andy Yakulis, a former Military particular operations commander, highlighted how costly the united statesGerald R. Ford plane service is at $13 billion, with different platforms, “such because the F-35, costing between $80m to $100m per plane. Whereas the U.S. was constructing such programs, China has been targeted on cheaper programs that, in mass, can destroy these giant programs.” Yakulis additional identified that within the Crimson Sea, the U.S. Navy has been utilizing two $1 million missiles to shoot down Houthi drones that price simply $40,000 every. Meaning the price of the drone is simply about two % of the worth of the missiles wanted to destroy it.
“Our adversaries use $10,000 one-way drones that we shoot down with $2 million missiles,” mentioned Military Gen. Bryan P. Fenton. “That price profit curve is the wrong way up.” The Houthis in beneath two months have been additionally in a position to shoot down $200 million price of U.S. drones within the Yemen battle.
Taiwan is Taking Be aware
Taiwan has additionally not too long ago unveiled its first uncrewed floor vessel (USV), the Endeavor Manta, developed particularly for naval protection within the Taiwan Strait. Constructed by CSBC Company, the vessel is designed for swarm operations, can carry mild torpedoes and a warhead for kamikaze-style strikes, and contains autonomous navigation, AI goal recognition, and anti-hijacking options. Impressed by Ukraine’s use of naval drones, the Manta is a part of Taiwan’s broader technique to counter Chinese language navy superiority by means of low-cost, uneven warfare, becoming a member of a rising world pattern of utilizing drones as drive multipliers in fashionable conflicts. Alessio Patalano, Professor of Conflict and Technique at King’s Faculty, London, famous that counting on weapons which are cheaper and simpler to amass can be vital to serving to Taiwan defend itself towards a possible Chinese language invasion.
Moderately than making an attempt to match China’s drone manufacturing, Hunter Keeley of the U.S. Marine Corps steered Taiwan ought to undertake Ukraine’s focused strategy: deploying naval drones and missiles in targeted, intelligence-led strikes close to anticipated touchdown zones. A restricted, layered Hellscape – centered on drones, jammers, and cellular sensors – may considerably disrupt PLA amphibious operations and purchase Taiwan vital time within the opening phases of a battle.
In keeping with Kuzan, “Taiwan already advantages from U.S. assist and has its personal superior protection trade, which is testing each floor and underwater maritime drones. For instance, Taiwan’s Sensible Dragon underwater drone is reportedly armed with torpedo programs.” He believes that incorporating torpedoes into Ukrainian sea drones could possibly be the subsequent step of their growth. Kuzan remarked that, “If the chance and necessity come up, Ukraine may probably promote or trade its navy applied sciences with Taiwan. This might be mutually useful, permitting each international locations to boost their capabilities.”
China and Russia Put together
Russia can also be taking notes. Whereas it has considerably lagged behind Ukraine in naval drone warfare, it’s now getting ready for the long run at sea. On the Military-2024 protection present, Russia unveiled the Murena-300S, a brand new naval drone resembling Ukraine’s profitable sea drones. With a 500 km vary, the quick and compact USV is constructed for coastal missions equivalent to reconnaissance, mine-laying, and strike operations, presumably with a big explosive payload. The Murena seems to characteristic a Starlink antenna, suggesting Russia is searching for to match Ukraine’s real-time drone management capabilities.
The Russians have discovered laborious classes from Ukraine’s uneven warfare and at the moment are making use of these insights extra quickly. Russia is creating unmanned programs regiments inside its Navy that can combine aerial, floor, and maritime drones to hold out reconnaissance and strike missions throughout all fleets. These new models, geared up with programs like Orlans, Lancets, FPVs, and USVs, are anticipated to kind the spine of the Navy’s unmanned element, with deployments deliberate throughout the European, Pacific, Caspian, and Dnieper naval forces.
On the identical time, Russia is steadily advancing towards the growth of AI-enabled autonomous drone swarms. It’s investing closely in AI analysis, each domestically and thru partnerships with international locations like Iran and China. Russia is focusing its efforts on leveraging low-cost, scalable drone know-how to overwhelm adversaries. This may be utilized to the battle at sea as effectively. If the U.S. goals to deploy giant costly ships throughout the Asia-Pacific, we may see our adversaries working collectively to deploy low-cost drones to destroy the ships.
China has additionally unveiled the Feiyi drone earlier this 12 months, the world’s first recognized aerial and underwater drone able to launching from a submarine, transitioning between air and sea a number of instances, and returning to its unique platform.
Making ready NATO for the Future
In a February 2025 interview, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey laid out daring concepts for revitalizing the U.S. protection trade and countering China’s rising navy menace. He argued that the U.S. ought to shift from “world police” to “world’s gun retailer,” prioritizing mass manufacturing of weapons over elite, slow-to-build programs. Citing China’s large manufacturing capability and militarized civilian infrastructure, Luckey warned that Beijing is getting ready for full-scale warfare, together with repurposing industrial ships and producing cruise missiles far sooner than the U.S.
Warfare is quickly evolving right into a battle of algorithms and flexibility. If the West clings to its old-school mannequin of constructing large, slow-to-deploy programs, it dangers a harsh wake-up name – the place billion-dollar warships are struck down by sea drones costing a fraction of that. On this new period, velocity, scale, and software program will decide who dominates the battlefield. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, it was unprepared for the way rapidly warfare would evolve, and the way drones would come to dominate the skies.
Now Ukraine has amassed an enormous war-time video dataset, over 2 million hours of drone footage by means of its OCHI system, which collects and analyzes feeds from 15,000 frontline drone crews. This knowledge is getting used to coach AI for battlefield functions equivalent to goal recognition, weapon effectiveness evaluation, and autonomous drone techniques.
Kuzan believes that Ukraine is already engaged on constructing AI applied sciences for its sea drones as effectively. “Notably, through the profitable maritime drone assault on December 31, 2024, which resulted within the destruction of Russian helicopters, many researchers speculated that AI was used to boost goal identification and missile steerage,” mentioned Kuzan.
NATO ought to work carefully with Ukraine on the event of those fashions to organize its personal autonomous sea drones to deploy them in future conflicts. The UK-built Kraken3, impressed by Ukraine’s battlefield improvements, was not too long ago unveiled, showcasing AI-powered swarming capabilities, kamikaze drone launches, and GPS-free navigation, reflecting how Ukrainian success is already influencing NATO procurement.
NATO itself has begun increasing its unmanned maritime capabilities, not too long ago demonstrating autonomous floor vessels within the Baltic Sea by means of Process Drive X, an initiative designed to discourage sabotage and fill surveillance gaps. However these sea drones are targeted on addressing the menace of Russian sabotage. Extra sensible drones are wanted to assist disable enemy warships, equivalent to within the occasion of a Chinese language blockade of Taiwan. Costly programs will now not do the job. Low-cost and scalable options are what is required for NATO. Some within the U.S. are already eager about how naval warfare is being reworked. For instance, the U.S.-based Anduril has unveiled the Seabed Sentry – a community of AI-powered cellular undersea sensor nodes designed for persistent monitoring and undersea kill chains.
Lithuania is main by instance as it’s shifting towards shared sea drone manufacturing with Ukraine beneath a “1+1” mannequin, the place one Magura-class sea drone can be retained for Lithuania’s protection and the opposite delivered to Ukraine. “Whether or not you wish to consider it or not, whether or not you’ve got or are about to signal contracts for tanks and helicopters for the subsequent 10 years, the character of navy energy has already modified,” mentioned Zaluzhnyi.
Immediately, Ukraine’s sea drones management a major extent of the Black Sea. In a future battle over the Arctic or the Asia-Pacific, we are able to count on an excellent better surge – a real sea of drones. As Ukraine’s navy chief put it, “After the warfare we will definitely write a textbook and we’ll ship it to all of the NATO navy academies.”
David Kirichenko is an Affiliate Analysis Fellow on the Henry Jackson Society. His work on warfare has been featured within the Atlantic Council, Heart for European Coverage Evaluation, and the Trendy Warfare Institute, amongst many others. He could be discovered on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.
References
1. This text attracts on interviews carried out by the writer from the interval of March-April 2025.
Featured Picture: A Ukrainian navy counterintelligence brigadier basic walks on a brand new Sea Child “Avdiivka” naval drone, throughout its presentation by the Ukrainian safety service, within the Kyiv area, on March 5, 2024. (Photograph by Evgenniy Maloletka/AP)
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