Drones have become a game-changer in the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war and after an early lead, Ukraine is losing now as Moscow outproduces and out-innovates Kyiv.

That doesn’t mean Ukraine will be defeated anytime soon. Although Russia is able to bring overwhelming force to the battlefield, Ukraine burgeoning drone fleet is deadly and is holding back Russian advances and causing huge losses. The swarms of drones hovering over the no-man’s land between the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and the Russian forces has made it a kill zone no one can go into and survive.

“This conflict has demonstrated the battlefield advantages of drones, which have become smaller, more lethal, easier to operate and available to almost anyone,” Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) said in a recent paper. “They compress the so-called kill chain, shortening the time from when a target is detected to when it is destroyed, and they can bolster a military’s ability to reconnoitre the forward edge of the battlefield.”

Ukraine had an early lead when it adapted commercially available drones that cost as little as $1,000 and hung Soviet-era grenades to their underbelly that were dropped on expensive artillery pieces or took whole patrols of Russian invaders by surprise, with devastating effect. Since then the size and variety of drone has expanded dramatically.

“These range from the very small – such as the Black Hornet which has a wingspan of only 12 centimetres – to drones with wingspans of over 15 metres. Small systems play a particularly important role in Ukraine. Quadcopters and other rotor drones are mainly produced by commercial firms such as the Chinese DJI and are among the most common. Armed systems, such as the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2,” European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) said in a report.

But Russia learned the lesson quickly and deployed its own drones, buying more from Iran, and has since set up its own production after Russian President Vladimir Putin put the entire Russian economy on a war footing. At the same time, a technology race has broken our as both sides innovate, introduce longer-range drones and develop electronic warfare (EW) countermeasures

Germany’s tank debacle in Ukraine is showing the true, awful cost of the ‘peace dividend’

Late and unserviceable, just a quarter of the promised Leopards 1s have actually been delivered

The best thing about the Leopard 1A5 is that, in theory, it’s available in large numbers. Starting early last year, the German-Danish-Dutch consortium identified at least 165 ex-German and ex-Danish Leopard 1A5s and 1A5DKs as well as 30 ex-Belgian 1A5BEs – these with enhanced fire-controls – that German firms Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann could refurbish for Ukraine.

To put into perspective how many tanks that is, consider that Ukraine’s allies have pledged 900 tanks to the war effort, reinforcing a thousand or more tanks Ukraine had in service or in storage before the wider war. The Ukrainians have lost more than 700 tanks in combat since 2022.

Only around 150 of the pledged replacement tanks are modern American-made M-1s, British Challenger 2s and German Leopard 2s. The Leopard 1A5 could, in theory, be Ukraine’s third most numerous tank type after the ex-Soviet T-72 and locally-made T-64 – and a boon to Ukrainian brigades struggling to make good their battlefield losses.

But only if those 200 Leopard 1A5s ever arrive. After more than a year of effort, the consortium has transferred just 90 or so of the tanks to Ukrainian ownership. But not all of the tanks that officially belong to Ukraine are actually in Ukraine. Some are still awaiting repairs and upgrades in Germany. Others are at a German army base, serving as training vehicles for Ukrainian crews.

By late last year, Germany had actually delivered 40 Leopard 1A5s to Ukraine. This week, after a six-month pause in deliveries, the German government announced it had shipped another 10 tanks. Nearly a year and a half into the Leopard 1A5 initiative, barely a quarter of the tanks are anywhere near the front line.

​​​​​​​ The Leopard 1A5s are very late. And it’s no secret why.

Ukraine rejected a batch of 10 Leopard 1A5s owing to the tanks’ poor material condition. Similarly, several other Leopard 1A5s that arrived in Ukraine last summer immediately broke down. German officials determined that the tanks wore out during intensive, two-week training courses for Ukrainian crews.

The Leopard 1A5s were in worse shape than the German-Danish-Dutch consortium – not to mention Ukraine – expected. And German industry wasn’t ready to repair a lot of broken tanks, fast.

Part of the problem is a serious shortage of spare parts for tanks – and not just Leopard 1A5s. The same shortage also afflicts Ukraine’s battle-damaged Leopard 2s. The parts problem is so serious that, in September, the Brazilian army suspended a plan to upgrade its own Leopard 1A5s. The Brazilians cited the “global demand for tank parts.”

That Germany has resumed shipping Leopard 1A5s is good news – even if they’re shipping in tiny numbers. But the resumption of deliveries doesn’t make the tanks any less late. It turns out that, when it comes to equipping Ukraine’s tank corps, talk is cheap – and tank repairs are expensive.

​​​​​​​ The Leopard 1A5 debacle shines a light on the deep rot in the European defense industry, 33 years after the fall of the Soviet Union ushered in an illusory era of peace that, in the minds of many European politicians and officials, justified deep cuts in defence spending. Those cuts gutted key industries, including the industries designing, building and maintaining armoured vehicles.

More than two years into Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, Europe is scrambling to resuscitate these industries – not only for the sake of Ukraine’s war effort, but also to support the expansion and modernisation of armoured forces in European armies. We’ll know the industries are healthy again when they can deliver rebuilt Leopard 1A5s to Ukraine in a timely manner.

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