“We can do without America” was the message I kept hearing throughout my visit to Ukraine with several colleagues. The country is delivering a phenomenal performance on the front lines through its drone-based kill zone, where anything that moves is eliminated. These drones are domestically produced. There are now around 450 manufacturers, which are expected to produce some seven million drones by the end of this year.
New experimental drones are sent to the front and tested in combat. A small percentage prove promising and are developed further; the rest are sent back. In small innovation hubs near the front, drones are repaired and improved. Operational experience is shared directly with manufacturers, and combat units themselves place production orders with industry.
This decentralised approach stands in stark contrast to the way armed forces have traditionally procured weapons. Complex acquisition and procurement procedures simply do not work when innovation cycles can be as short as six weeks and the battlefield change every four months.
This is the hard lesson NATO must learn, as it remains too attached to traditional ways of thinking. The consequences of that mindset became clear during a conversation with a Ukrainian drone pilot who, during an exercise on the Swedish island of Gotland last month, said he and his colleagues had wiped out an entire NATO unit within minutes. “They really have no idea how warfare is changing. And they are learning very little,” lamented the pilot, who has since become something of a celebrity in Ukraine.
That is precisely the conclusion one reaches after travelling along the front: what is happening here is far removed from the worldview of many NATO generals, politicians and superficial observers. In Ukraine, everything revolves around decentralization, innovation, speed and affordability. That not everything is doom and gloom became clear to me during an earlier visit to the Lithuanian–Belarusian border region, where Ukrainian experts are helping to develop a kill zone designed to keep Russian forces at a distance.
However, spending considerable time in bomb shelters also makes it clear that Russia remains capable of inflicting massive damage on cities and urban areas, particularly through ballistic missile attacks. Here, the Americans are still indispensable, as they supply the interceptor missiles used by the Patriot air defense system. The problem is that the United States expended large numbers of these missiles during the war with Iran, creating concerns about future availability for Ukraine and the rest of Europe. As a result, Ukraine is now developing its own system with the support of European partners.
The consequences of Trump’s strategic withdrawal and his war with Iran are significant, including for the United States itself, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly—a former astronaut and combat pilot—told a gathering in Odesa. He acknowledged that Ukrainians no longer require military advice from the United States. When I asked whether this, combined with the production problems of the American defense industry, meant that Ukraine should effectively replace the United States as a weapons producer for the West, he answered in the affirmative. That suggests the transatlantic community is drifting apart at a relentless pace.
Throughout the trip, I kept thinking about a remark made by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the European Parliament, where he dismissed the idea that Europe could become independent of the United States in defense matters with the words, “keep on dreaming.” The Ukrainians made it clear to me that we no longer have a choice.
Source: Trouw, Rob de Wijk, 11 juni 2026
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