Tetiana Tyshchenko spoke at the meeting "Drone and Counter-Drone Systems – Challenges for Poland’s Security" in Warsaw

Asters Partner Tetiana Tyshchenko spoke at a closed-door meeting of the Industrial Club of National Security of Poland attended by representatives of the Polish Ministry of National Defence, the General Command of the Armed Forces of Poland, the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology of Poland, the Polish Border Guard, leading defence technology companies, financial institutions and industry associations.

During the event dedicated to the dronization of warfare, UAV systems, counter-drone solutions and interceptor drones, participants from the defence industry, military structures and Polish governmental institutions held a substantive discussion on the future of security in Europe.

In her remarks, Tetiana shared Ukraine’s experience and emphasised that modern defence capability is created not only by technology itself, but by the speed of interaction between the military, industry, the state, investors and legal infrastructure.

Tetiana focused in particular on the key developments already shaping the modern battlefield:

— drone-centric warfare and its impact on the economics, geography and tempo of war

— the new cross-domain role of drones: unlike traditional military systems, unmanned technologies are not limited to a single domain or function and can simultaneously provide reconnaissance, observation, targeting, strike capability, logistics, evacuation, route control and infrastructure protection

— modern unmanned systems that are transforming the interaction between the army, aviation, artillery and air defence by integrating different military capabilities into a more dynamic ecosystem: reducing the time between detection and action, increasing battlefield transparency, automating parts of combat functions, reducing risks for personnel and continuously accelerating the innovation cycle

— rapid adaptation of technologies in response to real battlefield needs: the Ukrainian model demonstrates that strategic advantage is created not only by possessing technology, but by the ability to move quickly from an operational request to prototype development, testing, modification, deployment and further scaling

— the role of artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and autonomous systems as elements of an integrated defence architecture: from threat detection and identification to navigation, communications, countering hostile unmanned systems, automation of combat functions and reduction of risks for personnel

— the new logic of counter-drone solutions: as attacks become increasingly combined and designed to overload defence systems, the response can no longer rely on a single technology or only on traditional air defence. Instead, it must function as an adaptive layered system integrating detection, identification, electronic warfare, mobile response groups, protection of critical infrastructure, frontline defence and other response layers

— interceptor drones as a new level of scalable aerial interception and a potentially more economically sustainable response to part of the drone threat

— Ukraine’s real-time defence-industrial adaptation model, where the cycle from battlefield need to operational deployment may take only several weeks

— Ukrainian platforms Brave1 Market and DOT-Chain Defence, which demonstrate a new logic of defence procurement: military units can formulate requests based on real battlefield needs and, through the “ePoints” system, use points received for confirmed target destruction to order new defence technology solutions

— the transition from a traditional top-down procurement model to an approach where military units formulate demand based on real combat experience

— the shift in international cooperation from the logic of “buy from Ukraine” to “build with Ukraine”

For Poland, as one of NATO’s and Europe’s key eastern flanks, Ukraine’s experience is important not only from the perspective of specific technologies, but also as a model of rapid interaction between the military, the state, industry and defence procurement systems.

This is no longer a question of the future, but a question of the speed of adaptation, institutional flexibility and the ability to build a modern defence ecosystem.

We thank Wardynski & Partners and the Casimir Pulaski Foundation for the invitation, and all speakers, military representatives and participants for a substantive and strategically important discussion.

Asters is the largest full-service law firm in Ukraine with offices in Kyiv, Brussels, London, and Washington, D.C. The firm has access to over 125 jurisdictions through a well-developed network of partner law firms.