Blog by Hubert Schmitz and Peter Knorringa
Drones have changed warfare in a big way. The clearest evidence comes from the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. Drone technology has been key to Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against its mighty neighbour. Whether it will also help to achieve a lasting peace cannot be said at this point. But it is not too early to ask how the capability to make drones was acquired, how vulnerable this capability is and whether a new model of frugal warfare has emerged.
Drones can be used for many purposes. In this blog we focus on drones for defence (D4D). And we focus on Ukraine because it has become the most advanced laboratory of warfare. Readers should know we are not experts on military technology nor Ukraine. We can draw however on some analytical skills which were acquired in other settings where we examined the acquisition of production and innovation capabilities, vulnerabilities in value chains and the frugality of products and processes. Nevertheless, the task is daunting which makes it extra important to pose clear questions:
- How did Ukraine acquire the innovation and production capabilities?
- What vulnerabilities arise from the D4D value chains?
- Do D4D herald a new phase of frugal warfare?
Information on Ukraine’s D4D is anything but scarce. There has been an explosion of reports in the media which is hardly surprising given the importance of the outcome of the war for all our futures. The challenge was harnessing the available information in such a way that it answers our three questions.
How did Ukraine acquire the innovation and production capabilities?
Ukraine entered the 2022 full‑scale war with modest, mostly volunteer‑driven drone innovation but limited industrial capacity; by 2025 it had become a world‑leading producer of short and long‑range drones, with innovation and production both scaling dramatically. Let us unpack this dramatic story.
1. Innovation Capabilities
a) At the outbreak of the full‑scale war (February 2022)
Innovation was decentralised, improvisational, and driven by volunteer groups, not by a mature defence‑industrial base. Key characteristics:
- Reliance on civilian drones: Ukraine depended heavily on Chinese-made commercial drones at the start of the invasion.
- Volunteer engineering groups had been experimenting before the war, but their work was small‑scale and based on adapting hobbyist technology.
- Rapid frontline feedback loops existed even then: Ukrainian operators modified drones quickly for reconnaissance and small munitions drops, but this was not yet an industrialised R&D system.
- Component-level innovation was limited: Ukraine lacked domestic production of key subsystems (optics, chips, motors), making innovation dependent on imported parts.
Overall, Ukraine had high creativity but low technological sovereignty.
b) Today
Innovation has become structured, well-funded, and technologically ambitious.
- Government-backed innovation system: Ukraine built a support system combining infrastructure, targeted investment, and venture capital.
- Advanced R&D areas now include AI‑enabled autonomy, swarm coordination, naval drones, and electronic‑warfare‑resistant systems.
- Agile development model: Ukraine excels at rapid iteration—testing, modifying, and redeploying drones in weeks, not years—enabled by tight cooperation between developers and frontline units
- Emergence of specialised companies producing FPV (first person view), interceptor, and long‑range strike drones, replacing earlier reliance on imported Chinese platforms.
Innovation has shifted from improvisation to systematic, scalable defence technology development. Simultaneously, Russia is also innovating at high speed in terms of developing new kinds of drones. Both sides of the frontline are locked in a fierce innovation race, rapidly testing and deploying new drone technologies.
2. Production Capabilities
a) At the outbreak of the full‑scale war (2022)
Ukraine possessed substantial industrial capacity and a high level of education, but the production of drones was small, fragmented, and heavily import‑dependent.
- Ukraine produced only 3,000–5,000 drones in 2022, mostly assembled from imported components.
- Manufacturing relied on small workshops and volunteer groups, not industrial lines.
- Supply chains were fragile, with China providing many essential components.
Ukraine could innovate tactically but could not yet mass‑produce.
b) Today
Production has undergone a massive transformation.
- Output surged from a few thousand in 2022 to several millions drones in 2025.
- Ukraine now produces aerial, naval, and long‑range strike drones, supplying most its own battlefield needs.
- Despite this growth, component dependency remains a strategic vulnerability, especially due to Chinese export restrictions.
Production has shifted from artisanal to industrial scale, though not yet fully sovereign.
What vulnerabilities arise in the D4D value chains?
Ukraine does not produce all the software and hardware inputs which it needs for making D4Ds. It has built impressive design, integration, and final‑assembly capabilities, but still depends heavily on foreign components and infrastructure. That is where the main vulnerabilities lie.
Unpacking the D4D value chain one can distinguish between different kinds of vulnerabilities.
Component chokepoints
- Concentrated dependence on Chinese electronics:
- Many motors, electronic stability control systems, radio frequency modules, and cheap optics originate in or pass through China.
- Export controls, informal pressure, or shifts in Chinese policy can abruptly restrict supply, forcing redesigns and increasing costs.
- Advanced sensor and chip dependence:
- High‑end sensors, that measure temperature or motion, and certain microchips come from a small number of Western or Asian suppliers.
- Tightened dual‑use export controls can delay or block access to the best technology, degrading performance over time.
Logistics and sanctions‑pressure
- Reliance on grey/parallel import networks: To get restricted components, Ukraine (and its partners) often use complex intermediary routes. These are vulnerable to sanctions enforcement, banking restrictions, and customs crackdowns, which can disrupt production rhythms.
- Lead‑time and redesign risk: If a key component is cut off, Ukrainian firms must re‑engineer airframes, firmware, and supply chains around new parts—slowing output and introducing reliability issues.
Digital and infrastructure vulnerabilities
- Dependence on foreign satellite communications, notably Starlink: Changes in policy, coverage, or access conditions can directly affect drone operations, especially long‑range and naval systems.
- Heavy reliance on the Global Navigation Satellite System: Electronic warfare (EW) by Russia such as the jamming of the GNSS affects precise positioning and targeting.
- Cyber and cloud exposure: Use of foreign cloud and development platforms creates attack surfaces (legal, political, and cyber) that affect development pipelines or data security.
In summary, Ukraine has achieved near autonomy in design, integration, and software, but remains strategically exposed at the component and infrastructure layers—electronics, sensors, power systems, GNSS, and satellite communications—so any actor that can squeeze those chokepoints can slow or degrade its drone warfighting capability.
Do Ukrainian drones for defence herald a new phase of frugal warfare?
The very notion of frugal warfare will cause uproar amongst some readers. Frugality is usually associated with good things such as more affordable products or more sustainable processes. Warfare involves killing people. How can we even think of using the term frugal in connection with war. We share this sentiment but also recognise that there can be circumstances in which warfare is key to self-defence. Ukraine has been in that kind of situation since 24 February 2022 and fostering its drone innovation and production capability has been keen central to that self-defence. Of course, innovations are not by definition a force for the good. Neither are frugal innovations. It all depends on who owns and uses the innovation and for what purpose.
We would suggest that drones for defence from Ukraine herald a new phase of what one could call frugal warfare. This term needs careful explanation. What Ukraine has pioneered is not “cheap warfare” but a new model of cost‑asymmetric, modular, rapidly iterated, and distributed warfare. This contrasts with the immensely costly, often gold-plated and overengineered defence systems that were developed in recent decades, especially by American companies. The very affordable, flexible and highly functional drones are proving a revolutionary wake-up call for the military.
Let us break that down in a way that connects directly to what we have said above about innovation vs production capabilities, value‑chain vulnerabilities, and the evolution of Ukraine’s drone industry.
1. Why “frugal warfare” is the right concept — but not the whole story
If we define frugal warfare as: achieving military effects through low‑cost and high functionality, rapidly adaptable, widely distributed technologies rather than expensive, slow‑to‑produce legacy systems then Ukraine is the clearest real‑world demonstration of it since 1945.
But Ukraine’s version has distinctive features:
- Extreme cost asymmetry: Drones costing a few hundred euros have destroyed armoured vehicles and other weapons costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of euros.
- Rapid iteration cycles: Designs evolve in weeks, not years.
- Distributed production: Hundreds of small firms and workshops, not a handful of defence primes.
- Open‑architecture innovation: Components sourced globally, firmware modified locally, airframes printed anywhere.
- Operator‑driven R&D: Frontline units feedback improvements directly to engineers.
2. What makes Ukrainian drone warfare “frugal” in practice?
2.1 Cost discipline built into the design philosophy
Ukrainian FPV drones are deliberately simple, modular, repairable, based on globally available components and designed for mass production, not perfection
This is the opposite of the Western defence‑industrial model, which prioritises exceptional performance, usually achieved at extremely high cost.
2.2 Speed is a critical success factor
Insights gained in battle are translated rapidly into new designs, production of prototypes is tested straight away in battle conditions. High speed in the design and production cycles cuts down lead times and cost.
3. Why this is a new phase of warfare
3.1 The economics of destruction have flipped
For the first time in modern war:
- A small inexpensive device can destroy a sophisticated expensive weapon.
- The marginal cost of a strike is tiny.
This overturns 40 years of assumptions about achieving superiority on the battlefield through precision warfare at very high cost.
3.2 Software is now a decisive layer.
The “frugal” part is based on software‑defined capability, in particular:
- AI‑assisted targeting
- autonomous navigation
- EW‑resistant control links
- swarm coordination
- mission‑planning tools
Software turns cheap hardware into effective weapons.
4. Ukraine’s frugal warfare has vulnerabilities
This frugality entails big advantages, but it comes with several structural risks:
- Dependence on foreign components: Motors, chips, optics, batteries — many come from China or Taiwan. This creates strategic chokepoints.
- Susceptibility to EW: Cheap drones are easier to jam unless software and autonomy keep pace.
- Fragile production networks: Distributed workshops are agile but vulnerable to supply chain shocks, power outages, missile strikes, and loss of key engineers
- Scaling challenges: Mass production strains quality control, logistics, training and battlefield coordination
In short, Ukraine’s frugal warfare is powerful but has its vulnerabilities.
Questions for the Future
Ukraine is spearheading a new kind of warfare. But it is not the only country using drones for military purposes. Russia has employed drones extensively against Ukraine. Another example is Iran that has emerged as a major developer and exporter of military drones. Iran has for example successfully choked off the Hormuz Straits with small boats and drones against the might of US naval and air forces.
It would be useful to ask how the Russian and Iranian experiences compare with that of Ukraine, ideally by addressing the same questions we pursued in this blog. Are there different versions of frugal warfare or different combinations of hybrid warfare? Further into the future, it would be interesting to explore how frugal warfare is reshaping NATO doctrine and procurement.
Finally, there is the speculative question of whether drone technology makes military conflict more likely because the financial barriers to entry are much lower. Or could it have the opposite effect because the more powerful regimes recognise that the less powerful can defend themselves in ways not available in the past? Will we ever know?