4 years on: integrating lessons from Ukraine into European defence and resilience

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters a fifth year, the war continues to reshape the European security environment and challenge established assumptions about warfare, deterrence, preparedness and defence cooperation. Ukraine’s ability to adapt under fire, from rapid innovation cycles and the use of new technologies to whole-of-society resilience, has offered Europe an unprecedented, real-time laboratory of modern conflict.

At the same time, the war continues to expose structural weaknesses in Europe’s defence ecosystem, including slow capability development, fragmented procurement and persistent gaps between political ambition and operational reality. As Europe debates unprecedented levels of defence investment, questions are increasingly being raised about what capabilities are being prioritised, how they are financed, and whether current approaches are aligned with the evolving nature of warfare witnessed in Ukraine. These challenges are compounded by an increasingly volatile transatlantic backdrop.

Europe faces growing pressure not only to sustain support for Ukraine, but also to draw hard lessons from the war to strengthen its own preparedness in defence and societal resilience.

Friends of Europe brings together a high-level, multi-stakeholder panel to examine the lessons Europe must draw from Ukraine’s wartime effort and societal adaptation for its own defence cooperation, resilience and capability development. The discussion will explore how these lessons should inform European investment priorities, defence-industrial choices and long-term support to Ukraine.

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