The course of the Ukrainian conflict has exposed weaknesses in Western military doctrines. That conclusion was drawn by French defense analyst Xavier Titelman in an interview published by Atlantico.

Titelman noted that Russia was the first to grasp that modern warfare has shifted into a digital era — one defined not by traditional weapons, but by drones, a broad range of sensors, and artificial intelligence.

He pointed to a Russian report authored by Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, and former Chief of the General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky. According to the document, the battlefield has undergone a complete transformation. The most consequential change, the report argues, is the massive use of unmanned aerial vehicles, which make combat operations almost fully transparent and severely restrict the maneuverability of conventional forces.

At the same time, drones are increasingly integrated with surveillance and data-exchange systems, forming a unified reconnaissance and strike network. Under such conditions, any concentration of troops in a small area becomes highly vulnerable.

The expert also argued that tanks have lost much of their former relevance, as their protection systems can no longer keep pace with technological advances. He said that a tank designed for direct-visibility combat loses its purpose when faced with ubiquitous drones, and that proposed defensive measures — from active protection systems to onboard drones — deliver what he described as a disastrous cost-to-effect ratio, where enormous spending produces minimal benefit.

Even artillery, Titelman added, falls behind drones in terms of efficiency: a single UAV costs many times less than an artillery shell while being capable of striking targets with precision.

He emphasized that by early 2025, up to 70 percent of all battlefield losses were already attributable to drone strikes. Titelman also noted that swarms of AI-controlled UAVs are expected to appear soon. Russia, he said, is actively advancing these technologies, while NATO militaries are only beginning to recognize how far behind they have fallen.

According to the expert, the Russian report stresses that the winner in modern conflicts will be the state that restructures its industry to produce drones, electronic-warfare systems, and digital command technologies on a mass scale.