Critical thinking and strategic vision gaps undermine Ukraine’s defense, says expert

Deputy Director of a Ukrainian company producing electronic warfare equipment, Anatolii Khrapchynskyi, shared his opinions with Espreso TV.

"At a recent meeting in Brussels, we raised the issue of creating hubs between Europe and Ukraine. The idea is to strengthen our own capabilities using European resources. But I will continue to emphasize: critical thinking and strategic vision of the situation are, unfortunately, what we often lack," Khrapchynskyi stressed.

According to him, focusing on cutting-edge technologies like fiber-optic drones or motorcycle units isn’t always the best solution. Ukraine first needs to carefully analyze what it’s fighting with, how it fights, and which weapons it needs more or less of.

He suggests reconsidering how Ukraine uses Western weapons since many have shown different results in real combat. At the same time, some tools have proven very effective because Ukrainian troops have used them to their full potential.

"The point is that most technological products used on the front line exhibit completely different characteristics in real combat conditions - not in laboratory settings or simulated scenarios once modeled in European or NATO countries.

Again, many current NATO doctrines and standards don't quite fit the conditions in which Ukraine is fighting. Europe and the world used to present war in a completely different way. Now, we're talking about printing a strike element on a 3D printer, adding plastique, attaching it to a drone, and immediately sending it on a combat mission. In this process, speed and responsiveness are critically important," Khrapchynskyi noted.

Khrapchynskyi added that Ukraine needs to establish an engineering center with an analytical department capable of responding quickly to all the challenges of modern warfare.

"Such a structure would help shape well-defined needs, with clearly formulated technical specifications that would form the basis of a comprehensive strategy," Khrapchynskyi concluded.

• Oleksandr Skoryk, a member of the Kharkiv Regional Council, says that Russian forces are constantly improving both their drone systems and the tactics they use to deploy them.