Ukraine should forget about help from the West to fight Russia and focus on 'cheap' unmanned vehicles instead, says its army chief

• Ukraine's military chief said the country must prepare for a decline in Western support.
• He said Ukraine can instead beat Russia using technology, such as drones.

Ukraine's military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said that the country must prepare for a decline in Western support in its war against Russia and instead win using unmanned vehicles and other technologies.

Zaluzhnyi, whose job is rumored to be on the line, made the comments in an op-ed for CNN, in which he discussed the challenges facing Ukraine as the second anniversary of Russia's unprovoked invasion approaches.

The op-ed is an important read because it provides an unusually frank assessment of the problems facing Ukraine and of the innovative approaches it'll have to embrace to win.

While Russia has the advantage when it comes to brute force, Ukraine has often countered attacks using advanced and, at times, improvized tech solutions.

Zaluzhnyi, nicknamed the Iron General, wants to lean into this strategy more heavily.

He said that Ukraine must place its military on a new footing if it is to defeat Russia.

"Our goal must be to seize the moment — to maximize our accumulation of the latest combat capabilities, which will allow us to commit fewer resources to inflict maximum damage on the enemy, to end the aggression and protect Ukraine from it in the future," he wrote.

He said unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, would be increasingly vital to Ukraine if it is to avoid the conflict becoming a "positional" one, or war of attrition where both sides are dug into defensive positions and there's little movement.

"Perhaps the number one priority here is mastery of an entire arsenal of (relatively) cheap, modern and highly effective, unmanned vehicles and other technological means," he said.

"Crucially, it is these unmanned systems — such as drones — along with other types of advanced weapons, that provide the best way for Ukraine to avoid being drawn into a positional war, where we do not possess the advantage."

He noted that Western support and supplies of key weapons from the West are running low.

"We must contend with a reduction in military support from key allies, grappling with their own political tensions," he said, with $66 billion in US aid currently blocked by Congress and a European Union aid package also delayed.

He said that Russia had significant advantages, with Western sanctions having failed to significantly damage its ability to ramp up its production of weapons, and it having a manpower advantage.

"We must acknowledge the significant advantage enjoyed by the enemy in mobilizing human resources and how that compares with the inability of state institutions in Ukraine to improve the manpower levels of our armed forces without the use of unpopular measures," Zaluzhnyi said, amid problems boosting the number of military recruits.

Zaluzhnyi also pointed to problems in Ukraine's weapons and ammunition production industries but said reorienting toward new technology could help Ukraine seize an advantage.

"Technology boasts an undoubted superiority over tradition," he said.

Ukraine has scored notable successes in recent months through its use of drones, using them to surveil the battlefield, attack Russian units, blow up Russian warships, and hit oil and gas facilities hundreds of miles into Russia.

The essay comes amid reports that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is about to fire Zaluzhnyi.

Last year, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to drive back Russian forces from territory they occupy in east and south Ukraine, but the offensive failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough.

An essay in The Economist last year where Zaluzhnyi admitted that the counteroffensive had not achieved its aims reportedly caused tensions with Zelenskyy.

According to The New York Times, US officials are working with Ukraine to try to boost its domestic weapons and technology production capabilities in case Western support continues to tail off.