NGRNThis piece was prepared exclusively for NV by Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ambassador of Ukraine to the United Kingdom, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (2021−2024)
As of May 2026, in the heart of Europe, in Ukraine, the largest war since World War II and the bloodiest in terms of casualties in the 21st century is still ongoing.
Perhaps, due to a number of illusions caused by the long and peaceful life on the continent since World War II and the stability in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union, each country on its journey to security will go through three levels of understanding.
The first is when the state and its leadership are absolutely sure that there are no problems or concerns, that all the problems definitely do not concern us and, in the end, these problems will disappear by themselves. Or even worse – that these problems should be resolved, but only in the next election cycle.
The second is when a security problem already becomes obvious, it is precisely the level of concern that prompts governments to make another mistake and shift the solution of such a problem to the armed forces, assuring that new contracts will be concluded and the production of something necessary will be increased. And it is these armed forces that should now be responsible for the security of the state. All of this, as a rule, will be supported by a powerful information campaign that everything is being done correctly, and especially – that the state will also receive economic profit from it.
The third level, so necessary, unfortunately, comes when the forces and capabilities of the armed forces are running out, and the war is gaining momentum, proving that it is the state with all its institutions that is the foundation that must guarantee security both through avoiding conflicts by demonstrating constant state readiness, and by repelling the enemy if necessary, minimizing its losses.
This was so obvious in the last century, but it has become almost antagonistic in our time, where the basis of security is considered to be endless worries and promises of a better life.
Modern war and its features
However, when we talk about security not declaratively, but through the prism of our experience, we should focus on some important points.
First, modern war has a hybrid nature, which is determined by its manifestations in the military, economic, political, informational, cognitive and other spheres, including international relations.
Second, such a modern hybrid war begins with a hidden phase, then has a phase of struggle for local interests, influence, and resources, and a phase of full-scale invasion and transition to existential war.
Then let’s be honest: in the 21st century, the war in Ukraine, before the eyes of the whole world, has unprecedentedly developed from a hidden phase to a phase of a war for survival that threatens the very existence of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian state, which was attacked by Russia.
Then the third important point is that in a war, the price of which is the life of an entire nation, there is probably no compromise in the search for possibilities for its end. Because it is impossible to be a little killed, or half alive. Or even worse – under the created conditions agree to finish ourselves off.
This is very important for understanding safety, for example, from the perspective of disease progression. It is impossible to apply prophylaxis at this stage when surgical intervention is already required.
Preventing the uncontrolled use of force was the main task of the world order, which has already passed into history, through international institutions and international law.
Judging by the experience of Ukraine and the behavior of international institutions, such a world order was either directly unfair to countries like Ukraine, or its foundations did not lay down long-term control over the use of force.
Presumably, this world order provided for the existence of some gray (temporary) zones that were either subject to influence, or remained a field of struggle for interests, or were used to influence another geopolitical party, without harming its territory.
The fourth important point in forming an honest concept of security is that there should be no gray areas in the future world order.
Because, firstly, they will sooner or later become someone’s zone of interest, and secondly, they will bring danger and problems to neighboring states. Ukraine’s experience shows: if you agreed to a buffer zone, expect war, it’s already coming to you. Of course, hidden at first. This option will never again suit Ukraine, and logically, it should not suit our neighbors either.
Therefore, the concept of state security must encompass broader and more realistic notions of the state’s place in the existing world order. It is this world order that must determine the future of entire continents, such as Europe. And of course, for Ukraine to be abandoned again in this world order would mean signing a sentence for its children and grandchildren.
However, today, both the events in Ukraine and the events in the Middle East indicate that the international order created after 1945 and the collapse of the Soviet Union is in a state of collapse. International law and international institutions have not been able and cannot guarantee peace and security on planet Earth.
The same attempts to reshape the war in Ukraine into a subject of negotiations between strong leaders, during which the territory of Ukraine, guarantees of its security, and even natural resources were to become a “bargaining chip”, ended in nothing, proving once again that the world already lives by different rules.
International alliances, primarily NATO, have probably also lost their ability to guarantee the security of their members, primarily due to their technical unpreparedness to use force in modern war conditions, and due to the political inability of democratic institutions to make unpopular decisions.
It is also obvious that the USA is moving away from the role of the main defender of global democratic values and directly of European democracy. All this is happening against the backdrop of unprecedented development of scientific and technological progress and, as a result, the emergence of completely new means and forms of warfare.
Ukraine and Russia are directly involved in this. These are not training exercises through simulations or staff games, or fancy developments demonstrated on social networks. This is a real war.
Despite the fact that it is our doctrines and experience that will have a decisive influence in shaping the future security environment, the emergence of new cheap and massive weapons, against which there is no physical protection yet, gives any country or organization the opportunity to use a new force against any opponent.
This new weapon changed the very concept of the course of war – from the destruction of the enemy’s military potential to the destruction of the state itself, regardless of whether a particular object or group of people belongs to a military force.
This is a war where there is virtually no difference between the front and the rear. Reaching any person or object in the rear is much easier and cheaper than moving the front line even 20 meters.
So, speaking honestly about the security and experience of Ukraine, we can say with confidence that in such conditions it is necessary to either constantly declare some political idea or implement it in life.
Moving along the path of implementation, the question arises: what to do? Are there resources, understanding from political parties, and consolidated support from society? And, ultimately, is there a political will of the state leadership to implement radical changes or to political maneuvering and waiting for problems to be resolved in the next political cycle?
A logical question: can the Ukrainian experience be interesting, namely in shaping the security of both the state and future coalitions in such rather difficult conditions?
Only history will answer this question. History, which usually has the property of repeating itself. However, this is exactly the kind of experience we need.
Unacceptable compromises
It is well known that our experience is paid for with blood, and therefore it certainly cannot be converted into big money or great influence. It must be used to achieve not only a just but also a sustainable peace, which is possible only through partnerships that become the basis of new alliances, without gray areas.
I am also absolutely certain that it is our experience that is the capital that allows us to take a worthy place in the international security architecture, through its exchange for political support, investments, and technologies.
So, now to the experience. Without pathos and maneuvering.
First of all, in the conditions of an existential war for survival, the experience we have gained, the resilience of society, international support, and the technologies and doctrines created in the future still indicate that Ukraine remains within the scope of the possibility of achieving full subjectivity within the existing and new geopolitical framework. Of course, the main condition for achieving this subjectivity is to avoid compromises that could lead to the destruction of statehood. This applies to both external and internal threats, where compromises, for example in corruption, as well as in the state system, cannot be acceptable. Such compromises will sooner or later lead to the loss of subjectivity.
This is a war not only for interests, influence and resources, but also for life, freedom, identity and values. This is what can justify past and future losses.
Second, it is precisely this war for survival on the one hand and the imposition of achieving the goal of this war for destruction at the cost of huge losses on the other, which is an existential threat to both Ukraine and Russia.
When I am talking about Russia, I mean the impossibility of stopping the war due to the threat of the cessation of the existence of the state system itself, which, obviously, in the absence of victory, will simply cease to exist. So, it’s a war of attrition where survival means victory.
The critical importance of democracy
Third. In the current conditions, although the war continues between Ukraine and Russia, it affects the interests of almost all geopolitical players in the modern world to one degree or another and will certainly affect them with its global consequences. Therefore, the role of diplomacy of a warring country must function at the level of art and have its own diplomatic strategy, adjusted in place and time to other strategies, especially military ones. The military shapes borders, diplomats create the future, taking into account and respecting the values and interests of each international partner.
Fourth. In a democratic country defending itself against a totalitarian state, there is always a temptation to follow an imposed strategy of action using totalitarian methods, precisely because of the destruction of democracy, which can carry the threat of becoming like the enemy and ultimately being mentally absorbed by it. “One people,” as Russia’s leaders used to say.
Of course, in addition to the threat during war, this makes it impossible to build alliances and unions, due to the loss of democratic values. It is important to prevent the deformation of democracy during wartime – it is necessary to systematically support it and counteract the enemy’s imposed strategy both in military operations and in politics and economics.
Weapon of attrition
Fifth. This is what the West does not like to talk about the most. This is war itself. And our experience shows that although it has remained essentially an act of violence, its tools and forms and methods of waging it have changed.
The war continues to have a clearly expressed significant hybrid component. Combat operations are being conducted with absolute brutality both on the front line and inside the country, using all means, including information capabilities.
So what is modern warfare?
The super-expensive precision weapons that were the real game changer of the 20th century have been replaced by weapons of attrition. These are cheap and mass-produced, yet highly accurate weapons that rapidly wear out expensive weapons systems. Systems on which, by the way, the entire NATO doctrine is built.
This weapon of attrition is consistently and effectively evolving. If anyone thinks that these are drones that you can quickly buy for your army, then you are deeply mistaken. In 2026, drones are increasingly becoming just the ultimate tool of technology.
Already today, modern unmanned systems are not just remotely controlled technical means of various types. As predicted, they are already part of intelligent complexes that can operate in the most difficult conditions, including active enemy countermeasures in all domains. At the same time, artificial intelligence is the main factor in the development of unmanned systems, which leads to the final development of the capabilities of swarm application and autonomy.
This is the ability of such systems not only to execute human commands, but also to independently maintain a route, recognize obstacles, change trajectory, return to a given point, maintain stable functioning after partial loss of navigation signal or communication, and most importantly – to distinguish a target and make a decision to defeat it. This is rapidly changing not only the forms and methods of application and organization, but also is forming new doctrines.
The main question then is how to succeed under such conditions in a war of attrition and such high intensity.
First of all, in order to persevere and survive in a war of attrition, it is necessary to understand that such a war is a matter for the entire state and will require maximum efforts from all components of the country to achieve victory and create conditions for a just peace.
Social and economic resilience
Two basic things will determine a country’s success in such a war. The first is the resilience and ability of society to continue the struggle and its willingness to accept its results. The second is the resilience of the economy and its ability to continuously recover.
This is the foundation on which appropriate systems are built that will make surrender impossible due to the lack of the ability to continue the struggle.
Sixth. The issue of society’s resilience to war is perhaps the most important factor in state security. Such resilience has a large number of manifestations and vulnerabilities. They are connected with the history of the country and its people, religious preferences, and intellectual development in understanding the very values that will need to be protected.
It is because of this that, from Ukraine’s experience, the enemy uses both physical influence against society’s ability to fight, striking residential neighborhoods, hospitals, and educational institutions, killing women and children, and informational, psychological, cognitive, and worldview influences.
I want to emphasize that the methods of conducting such influence include both classic measures, such as propaganda and disinformation, and newer ones, namely, the use of social networks, the Internet, and artificial intelligence.
In conditions of critical need for society to receive real and truthful information, for example, about air strikes or the state of affairs at the front due to concerns about the fate of relatives, such information sources are first anonymized and expand the circle of subscribers, then quickly capitalized and used under the pretext of freedom of speech both for disinformation from Russia and to fight competitors or for intimidation and blackmail.
The purpose of such campaigns conducted on these networks is determined by the customers and is usually highly paid. However, both the performers and the customers remain unknown.
Also widely used are the informational influences of various kinds of asocial personalities. In conditions of impunity they create centers of hostility within the state, using the dosage of real information with its systematic distortion, also combined with bullying and insults. Such activity intensifies at responsible moments of state activity, is systemic in nature and is constantly duplicated in information and supported by Russian resources.
In the future, this situation has a tendency to worsen. Because today all this is done by real, albeit often unknown, people, and tomorrow it will all be done by AI in the same networks.
From Ukraine’s experience, such influences not only sow distrust and panic, but also do the most terrible thing – destroy critical thinking, which deprives the state of any future, primarily in state-building.
It’s hard to even imagine, but this is precisely why various kinds of “fortune tellers” and “psychics” are gaining widespread popularity in the 21st century, and are once again being used, including by Russia, as a means of influencing, communicating, and controlling a society that is losing critical thinking.
This is a real challenge to man and society, which poses a threat to both political systems and human mental health. In such a situation, just streamlining the information process will not be enough, because people still need to be taught to distinguish truth from illusion, which may take entire eras.
Success in neutralizing such influence can be achieved not only through organizational measures, which will always be tempting to the desire for absolute power over societies through control of the information space, but also through the development of a culture of critical thinking, which should become part of state policy to ensure national security.
By the way, over time, it is the attitude towards mobilization that will become the answer to the question of the real sustainability of society.
Seventh. It is the economy, together with public readiness, that becomes the lifeblood of war. And it is precisely this that is the enemy’s main target. The most vulnerable link in this economy for Ukraine has turned out to be energy. Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has traditionally been built on a centralized model: large power plants and a single grid connecting regions. However, this war has clearly shown that such a system is vulnerable to targeted attacks. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, strikes on power plants and grids became the main tool of war.
Our experience shows that Russia is deliberately targeting Ukraine’s fuel and energy sector, causing destruction, fires, and power outages. These attacks are carried out using missiles, drones, and other types of weapons and are purposeful in nature: destroying power plants, oil refineries, and other critical facilities, leading to power outages and other consequences for civilian infrastructure.
Therefore, energy security is inextricably linked not only to the stability of the economy during war, but also becomes part of national security.
And the constant increase in the intensity of air attacks using more powerful weapons, expanding their range, changing and diversifying the tactics of their use, of course, necessitates the adoption of completely new approaches to protecting such facilities.
The protection of energy facilities is becoming as important as the protection of one’s own borders and territories.
Not only the experience of Ukraine, but also the war in the Middle East has confirmed another vulnerability associated with changes in the forms and methods of warfare. Already, the nodes of the global economy and energy have become objects of attack, not soldiers on the battlefield.
Today, relatively cheap and scalable weapons systems can and do inflict very heavy losses on concentrated energy, transport and logistics infrastructure, and no air defense is capable of protecting against such attacks. Because it is precisely from an economic point of view, from a cost point of view, that such critical facilities cannot be reliably protected today.
Then, presumably, all new infrastructure projects should be created solely with today’s, not yesterday’s, threats in mind.
International support
Eighth. International support and the reliability of coalitions determine not only the economic stability of a country at war, but also remains the most effective mechanism for limiting the economic capabilities of the enemy through sanctions and other restrictions.
It is precisely because of this that such international support becomes the object of constant attacks from Russia, which is working purposefully to discredit Ukraine as a reliable partner.
Maintaining such support in the face of global turbulence is extremely difficult, because even despite having its own interests, the enemy uses the entire set of tools to target the vulnerabilities of democracy.
However, it is precisely through such support that the future geopolitical order will be built, where the main goal of each participant will be to achieve long-term security already by reaching compromises between themselves and Ukraine for the sake of future security.
Therefore, diplomacy remains the most important tool of the state in creating and maintaining a diplomatic front as a guarantor of the continuation and forming the contours of the end of the war.
Adequate solutions and management
Ninth. Adequate military decisions and avoiding the imposition of the order of combat operations by a more resourceful enemy, and the ability to adapt faster and seize the initiative in a high-tech war, remain the only principle of preventing Russia from realizing its political goals through military actions.
It should be remembered that it is modern warfare and its new tools that provide the opportunity to fight against a better-resourced enemy and win, but only until that enemy imposes the use of methods available only to it.
It is the availability of, for example, human resources that Russia uses as the main tool of intimidation and the futility of fighting it.
Tenth. Of course, this is not the entire complex, but only the main elements of the system of state stability in war.
However, even these are enough to understand that this entire system requires not only careful planning, but also continuous management and transparent and honest communication with society, as a basic component of war.
The system of public administration is of final and critical importance in ensuring the stability of the state, which will maximally preserve not only state interests, but also make maximum efforts to preserve human capital and prevent a demographic crisis. Such a system should be built, on the one hand, in a rigid hierarchical system necessary to ensure war, and on the other hand, be as professional and flexible as possible to change priorities and choose strategies. It should be based solely on the attractiveness of civil service and interest in pursuing it, which should be formed over the long term, from choosing a profession to the end of the career.
All this is possible only if democratic institutions are preserved, which can and must ensure a constant connection with reality in order to avoid the creation of a parallel reality and false decisions.
Of course, here too the enemy will constantly try not only to disrupt such a control system kinetically and informationally, but also to impose its own control behavior through the concentration of power.
Europe’s new security and the role of Ukraine
So, despite the fact that people are not yet being killed somewhere and explosions are heard only periodically, the security situation is already a major element of European concern today.
Everyone wants to live in abundance and peace, but they forget that it is for this that people who lived on this land once gave their lives. It is enough to look carefully at your borders. This is the blood of your soldiers who left it there in the 20th century.
The last one and most importantly. Periods of geopolitical turbulence and weakness of international institutions and international law are the best foundation for the development of conflicts and cataclysms.
Such periods require maximum concentration of attention on issues of security formation. Changes in the tools of warfare, its forms and methods against the backdrop of the destruction of the world order require not only the replacement of outdated weapons, but also a mandatory revision of doctrines and approaches to the formation of the very security of both the state and future coalitions.
All this cannot be accomplished by simply concluding new contracts and shifting responsibility to one of the state institutions. In addition to the time required for such transformations, experience is also needed, that exists only in Ukraine today. It is this experience that can be used to avoid acquiring own at the same price that we have already paid and are paying.
And in fact, it is very good that European countries and governments are finally not just discussing substantively strengthening security on the continent, but also want to know the specific needs and goals along this way.
The task of the government is not only to preserve the wealth of its voters, it is also to care for their lives and future. Today, I am not telling our friends that the enemy is already standing at your borders. From the experience of Ukraine I am saying that the factor of security and the ability of the state to provide it is the basis for both stability and economic growth.
Ukraine will definitely be able to set any ambitious goals, implement any ideas and strategies only when it can ensure and guarantee its security. It is this explanation that is troubling various agents both in Ukraine and abroad, who are trying to assure us of stability at the expense of losing security. We have already had all of this.
Therefore, Ukraine’s experience is not only in conducting technological warfare and surviving on the battlefield, it is broader and more important. It is about how, in today’s difficult conditions, to change the very approaches to security formation and effectively strengthen the existing security format, primarily of Europe.
The time for change has come, it only awaits decisions. Decisions that will go down in history.