Embedding Ukraine's defence know-how in EU defence planning and industrial strategy

As Russia’s full-scale invasion enters its fifth year, Ukraine has become the most consequential source of operational and industrial innovation in Europe. Its defence ecosystem, shaped under conditions of high-intensity warfare, offers concrete lessons for EU defence planning, procurement and industrial policy.

The evolution of drone and counter-drone capabilities illustrates this best. Since 2014, Ukraine’s drone sector has grown from a handful of firms to more than 400 companies. Production, training and operational deployment are tightly integrated. Manufacturers iterate directly with frontline units, compressing innovation cycles from years to weeks.

Ukraine’s model contrasts with Europe’s procurement and investment frameworks, which prioritise long-term planning and regulatory compliance but often lack mechanisms for rapid experimentation and scalable adaptation. The challenge is not to replace these structures, but to complement them.

Key structural implications include:

• Rebalancing investment between legacy platforms and emerging defence technology firms.
• Adjusting financial and regulatory frameworks to facilitate private capital flows into defence innovation.
• Structuring EU-Ukraine industrial cooperation through joint ventures, integrated value chains and coordinated export frameworks.

In addition to identifying the lessons Ukrainian experience can teach the EU and its individual member states, this debate discussion will examine how to:

• Transition from emergency assistance to a structured, long-term EU-Ukraine defence industrial partnership.
• Adapt EU and member state industrial systems to absorb Ukrainian operational lessons at scale.
• Prioritise capability areas where Ukrainian experience offers the greatest strategic return.

This debate builds on the conversation held on 24 February 2026 for the 4th annual commemoration of the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by aggressor Russia. This debate contributes to Friends of Europe’s Ukraine Initiative and the Jacques Delors Friends of Europe Foundation’s Spending Better initiative.

Follow us on X, LinkedIn or Instagram and join the #FoEDebate discussion!

Related content:

• Podcast | Why is Europe at war and what needs to be done with Myroslava Gongadze and Gábor Iklódy, Senior Fellows at Friends of Europe
• Event | 4 years on: integrating lessons from Ukraine into European defence and resilience
• Event | The EU’s sanctions paradox: frozen Russian assets and EU Bilateral Investment Treaties
• Initiative | The Ukraine Initiative