Technology race
Ukraine’s advantage remains fragile. Moscow’s economy is still on a war footing, Russia has expanded drone production, and its forces have repeatedly found ways to counter Ukrainian innovations. That’s why Kyiv is pressing allies to move faster with financing and procurement.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told POLITICO this month that Kyiv needs billions more in military aid to sustain the current momentum. “If we have enough resources to launch a new cycle of war innovations before Russia adapts to the current one, we will get another six months,” Fedorov said.
The defense ministers of Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Finland and Lithuania earlier this month wrote to European Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas calling for the Commission to move faster in approving Ukraine’s planned spending of EU financial support, to enable Kyiv to press its advantage.
Ukraine’s Economy Minister Oleksii Sobolev said Kyiv’s edge comes from necessity and short innovation cycles. “When people are trying to kill you, you have to survive and you have to innovate,” he told POLITICO. “There is no other way around it.”
But Ukraine does lack the advantage in one area: At NATO’s Ankara summit last week, Zelenskyy warned that Kyiv lacks sufficient means to stop Russian ballistic missiles, a point underscored by a string of attacks that have killed and injured dozens of Ukrainians.
“Please help us get more air defense missiles,” Zelenskyy said. “We are capable of doing everything else ourselves. But when it comes to air defense, we need our partners’ determination.”