Lawfare Daily: Ukraine’s Asymmetric Blueprint in the Black Sea

[Intro]

Catarina Buchatskiy: Any country that is thinking about future maritime operations should be looking at the Black Sea. And that's not just because of implementing USVs, actually. So implementing USVs is one of the lessons, but countering USVs is actually a huge and potentially even bigger lesson.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Katsiaryna Shmatsina, fellow at the Lawfare Institute, with Catarina Buchatskiy, director of analytics at Snake Island Institute.

Catarina Buchatskiy: It's really less about acquiring a Ukrainian drone or, you know, buying from Ukrainian manufacturers, and more about understanding the processes behind how we were able to scale this type of fighting across our army, how we were able to scale our manufacturing base.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: Today we're talking about Ukraine's maritime operations in the Black Sea drones and the supply chains behind them.

To set the scene, could you briefly describe the state of Ukraine's navy at the start of the full-scale invasion and how it has transformed since then?

Catarina Buchatskiy: Sure. So, in the beginning of 2022, Ukraine had a navy, but we can't say that it was completely functional as a traditional navy.

There's a lot of historical things that come into play here. So for one, during the time of the Soviet Union, all of the Soviet republics kind of shared the Black Sea fleet.

And so in 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence and Ukraine, Russia, and the other countries in the Soviet Union were kind of looking at what to do with that, Ukraine and Russia essentially decided to split the Black Sea Fleet 50/50.

But we all know that there's no such thing as real 50/50 with Russia. And so what had ended up happening was Russia took most of the powerful warships onto the Russian Black Sea fleet and left Ukraine with very much a depleted capacity.

So, not nearly the same amount of ships, not nearly the same amount of, kind of, particularly functional warships.

We had a flagship. So the flagship Sahaidachny was active, but we didn't have the same amount of, kind of like offensive operational ships and things like that. And so even at the beginning of 2022, we were pretty much in a position where we could not conduct large-scale offensive navy operations.

In addition to that, in 2014, Russia occupied Crimea, which has obviously had a huge impact on the state of Ukraine's navy, because the Black Sea Fleet during the times of the Soviet Union was stationed out in Crimea. Crimea and Odessa.

And so we retained Odessa, but the loss of the infrastructure and the port infrastructure in Crimea for Ukraine's navy meant that it took also a significant hit in terms of how operational it could be. And Russia's Black Sea fleet had been building up that presence for years and years and years, from 2014 to 2022. So to say that we were starting on a back foot in 2022 is an understatement.

And we also realized that any of our naval assets, especially the larger ones that we had retained, could very much be captured and be used to the Russian advantage. So in the beginning of the war, of the full-scale invasion, we intentionally scuttled our flag, our flagship. Which means that it was no longer operational, we couldn't use it. And it was a kind of a deliberate act of sabotage, in a way, to ensure that none of the large naval assets could get into Russian hands as well.

So, Ukraine started the war with this massive problem set, which is that Russia is using the Black Sea as it's, an area of operations. It's using the Black Sea to barrage Ukrainian cities, energy infrastructure, civilian objects.

There's also this pressure and threat of an amphibious landing on Odessa. So Russia is stationed in Crimea, kind of hoping to put pressure on Southern Ukraine, put pressure on potentially a landing, and also ensuring that any of our trade or kind of economic routes through Odessa can't get out into the rest of the world. So it's an aspect of economic war as well.

All of this to say that the Black Sea was a huge problem set for Ukraine, because we needed to keep economic access open. We needed to make sure that Odessa, that there was no threat on of an amphibious landing or any military operations on Odessa. And we also needed to make sure that the Black Sea couldn't be used as a landing spot essentially for Russian missiles into Ukrainian cities.

With all of that, and ensuring control over the Black Sea without our traditional offensive navy, was very difficult. Although now, you know, a few years later, a few years into the full-scale invasion, we see all the time this kind of statistic that Ukraine controls like 70% of the Black Sea without a navy, and Russia has been, you know, Russia's navy is almost in function at this point, and has retreated into cities like Novorossiysk.

And that is to kind of prove the, like how far we've come in terms of our naval capabilities. And this is with a completely unmanned and untraditional navy.

So, over the last few years, we've been putting a lot of focus on how can we leverage innovation, how can we leverage these technologies to maintain an upper hand on the water?

And our answer to that essentially was using USVs, so that's unmanned surface vessels. Ukraine's navy now consists of two main USVs that are the flagship of our new navy, the MAGURAs and the Sea Babies, each of which are operated by distinct security services that operate in the Black Sea.

So MAGURAs traditionally are used by HUR, which is the director of intelligence of Ukraine, and Sea Babies are traditionally used by the SBU, the security service of Ukraine.

So our navy now basically looks like this fleet of USVs. And onto that, once we established that and started producing these en masse, have started stacking all kinds of things on top of these. So, USVs that drones, that FPV drones can come out of or USVs that missiles can be attached to or USVs that are just plain, you know, exploding USVs, so kamikaze USVs.

So, on the basis of that, we've essentially built this modular maritime capability where you can kind of put anything onto those that will serve your purpose.

And they patrol the Black Sea, conduct missions, take out enemy targets and things like that. And so the state of our navy today is completely different because we actually have a real presence, we have pressure, and we have systems that we can use.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: Could you describe some examples of the operations, successful operations by USVs?

Also, like in your report you described that Russians are sort of using camouflage, and they are constantly aware of this presence that they could be at the target and like they are using camouflage for the sheeps to, sort of, disorient the drones. And so like, how does it work?

Catarina Buchatskiy: So some of our most successful operations, one I would say the Sevastopol port raid, which happened at the end of 2022, which was pretty significant. Because in the port raid we didn't just use USVs to target a particular Russian ship, but we actually used USVs to infiltrate the port of Sevastopol, which is located in occupied Crimea and is one of the large, large infrastructure hubs of the Russian Navy.

And there was one of these times where we really saw ingenuity and we also saw Ukrainian kind of USV swarm tactics coming into play. Because we sent out a few USVs at first to kind of do a little bit of a reconnaissance patrol, like see what the defenses were like, and then we had a bunch of USVs follow in and essentially attack the port infrastructure.

And Sevastopol is one of the most well-defended ports in the world. I mean, Russia understands the strategic value of Crimea. Crimea in general is one of the most well-defended military objects in the world because they know that they can't lose that.

And so the fact that a handful of our USVs were able to penetrate Sevastopol port and conduct damage there to the ships that were in, in the dock at the time, and even just threaten Russia so far deep into its occupied territory was pretty significant.

And keep in mind that this happened at the end of 2022, meaning this was really just the beginning of all of our operations.

The second most historic operation that I would say is Ukraine's use of USVs against Russian aerial assets. So, taking down the Russian fighter jets. And recently more news has come out that we've been taking down Russian helicopters as well.

And transforming the USV into a anti-aerial capability and an air denial capability is huge. That's historic. It's pretty much the first time in history that an unmanned sea vessel has threatened a fighter jet and has successfully downed a fighter jet.

What happened there was, you know, modularity comes into play, which is what's so special about these systems. So, a MAGURA was used, which is the one operated by the director of intelligence of Ukraine, and onto the MAGURA, they added two AIM Sidewinder missiles. And the Sidewinder missiles were essentially kind of lying in wait.

So the USV was out on the water, the fighter jet was flying over, and we attacked the fighter jet with the Sidewinders and were able to take it down.

That is very historic. It's a turning point, because it means that not only now are your naval vessels at play on open water no matter what—and you know, we've kind of democratized access to the sea in a way—but it means that air is not safe either. And it's significantly changed the way that Russia conducts its patrols over the Black Sea significantly changed their behavior, because they no longer felt safe sending out their fighter jets to either conduct strikes from atop the Black Sea or to even patrol like look for our USVs and things like that.

We recently started attacking helicopters as well, which fly lower and closer to the water. So slightly easier targets. But again, the fact that we're now able to also control the air above the Black Sea significantly limits Russia's operational range.

So I would say those are two flagship operations that really stand out to me as turning points in kind of asymmetric naval warfare.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: I'd like to talk about the cost-effectiveness of these operations. And it looks like roughly $1 spent for nearly $50 in Russian target value damage. I wonder, how significant is this ratio? How does it change dynamics for, in the battlefield? Or, do Russians feel the pain?

Catarina Buchatskiy: Yeah, that's a good question. Do Russians feel the pain? I hope so. But we also have to understand that wars now are very much wars of economies of scale.

So, whatever country has the economics behind it to continue pouring money into their military-industrial complex and to continue pouring money into the war has an exponential advantage ,because especially on the defending side, you are already put on your back foot for so many reasons. Because you're constantly facing attacks. You have to also somehow deal with, you know, threats to your civilians. You have to deal with the disruption to your day-to-day economy and things like that.

And so, there is very much an economic angle where Russia is trying to cripple Ukraine as much as possible economically. And you can see that through strikes also on energy infrastructure. You can see that through strikes on our manufacturing capabilities and our factories and things like that.

And cost-effectiveness of unmanned systems in general plays a huge role in this because Ukraine is a smaller country than Russia. It has a smaller GDP. It has less money to pour into its military-industrial complex. Although, now, I actually don't know if Ukraine has a smaller GDP than Russia currently today, but Russia feeds a lot more money into its military-industrial complex. And if we were to try to match them dollar for dollar, we would never be able to win. Because we're frankly not going to be spending the tens and tens of billions of dollars that they're spending to make their fighter jets and their ships and all of these kinds of things.

So, the only way that we can remain viable in this war is to find something that is competitive with those systems at a much cheaper price. And it's pretty much been revolutionary what the unmanned systems have done for us, because it means that Ukraine, with its limited amount of resources, remains very competitive. And it keeps us in the fight, because if we were, again, if we were to try to match them dollar for dollar, we would've lost a long time ago.

I also think that it's important for any country thinking about modernizing its arsenal to think about the cost-effectiveness ratio. Because what we've seen in the war in Ukraine is that access to kinetic and offensive capabilities has—the barrier to entry has lowered a ton, because you can strap a bomb onto an FPV drone and send it flying and just do disproportionate damage.

And so you need to defend yourself against that. And you cannot possibly, again, match that dollar-for-dollar. If you're going to be using exquisite systems that cost millions of dollars every time that a small FPV drone crosses your border and is trying to do a strike on some of your infrastructure, you're going to run yourself dry very quickly.

So cost-effectiveness is a huge part of the equation, and it's kind of a signature of the Ukrainian industry because that's what keeps us in the fight.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: How do you assess like Russian strategy and the operations in the sea? Because like, I do not pretend to be a military expert. I'm more like working on the policy side.

But let's say, like, in the, on the ground, Russians seem to have the almost endless supply of soldiers and like cannon, sort of disposable cannon fodder and whatnot. And this in a way gives them some sense of like superiority, or they can like rely on this even though, like, let's say like in terms of like military skills operations, there might be not having this advantage.

What works for them? What do they rely on when operating in the sea?

Catarina Buchatskiy: So, the sea is a very different situation for them than on the ground, because where on the ground they felt pretty comfortable just sending out the kind of meat grinder assaults where they send out dozens and dozens of infantrymen knowing that all of them except one is going to die, but, you know, that one is enough to take the position and then they send another 20 infantry men and just keep sending them with the 1% chance that one of them is going to make it, you can't do that on the water.

First, because you just, you need vessels. Second, because, you don't claim territory the same way. So, whereas on the ground, it's kind of enough to have one infantryman that's sitting in the woods to kind of claim that piece of territory. On the sea, I mean, sure, you can send out a little vessel and have one of your men just loitering out on the Black Sea and like claim that territory is yours, but the advantage calculus looks significantly different, because what you actually need on the water is the ability to have pressure.

What you need on the water is the ability to kind of like conduct strikes into the targets, like into Odessa, for example, into the Ukrainian cities. You don't really need people just there claiming territory, right?

It's just a little bit of a different incentive structure on the sea. And so they haven't been able to do that at all, because the moment that you send out these large ships that can have any real sort of real capability—so like you know, a ship that has missiles on it, that's going to attack Odessa, or a giant ship that's going to put pressure on commercial vessels and make it impossible for Ukraine to keep trading with other countries—the moment that you put that out onto the water, you are essentially putting it at risk. And not only that at risk, but the lives of your soldiers at risk.

The reason the lives of the soldiers part, I think, is actually not as important for Russia's because, well, for obvious reasons.

So I think that their calculus is more so, like, they have—they don't have a limited amount number of soldiers. They have an unlimited amount of soldiers that they can keep sending out, but they do have a limited number of ships. So quite literally, they are not going to be able to replenish their fleet fast enough.

So they just can't afford to have that risk. I mean, we sunk the Moskva in the first year of the war in 2022, which was their giant flagship vessel. And if they want to send out more of their ships that are going to be loitering on the water and bombarding Odessa, we're pretty quickly going to be able to hunt them down and put pressure on them, and then you're just not going to have ships at all.

So it significantly changes the calculus of like, what are you even doing on the water? Why do you need to be there? Which is why most of the Russian ships now hang out in the ports, in Novorossiysk or in the Crimean—or not even in the Crimean ports, they actually withdrew from a lot of the Crimean ports because the Crimean ports were within strike range of the Ukrainian drones.

So a lot of them now hang out in ports in Russia because they have a finite number of vessels and they can't replenish them. So they're kind of just sitting ducks.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: In your report, you described the Black Sea not only is a regional battlefield, but as a lab for future naval warfare. And I was wondering if you could elaborate.

Who else is watching these dynamics? Who could learn from it? Is it the Baltics? Is it in the Pacific?

Catarina Buchatskiy: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think there's a lot of countries that are watching right now, and a lot of countries that stand to benefit.

So yes, the Baltics and the Nordics, and we get a huge amount of interest from the Nordic countries. So, all the time we have delegations from Denmark, from Sweden, coming in and asking us about our naval warfare. Because they understand that they have, you know, a maritime border with Russia, and they understand that they're at risk. And we see hybrid activity in the Baltic Sea all the time, and they understand that there's going to be a pressure point there and that they need to defend themselves.

So, the Nordic countries and the Baltic countries are watching. I think China and Taiwan should be watching. China's definitely watching. China watches everything that's happening in the Ukrainian war, and they understand that Ukraine is providing a case study for not like successful, unsuccessful tactics, technologies, implementations, all of these things. I think Taiwan should be watching.

Now, the conditions in the INDOPACOM are very different for a number of reasons. So first of all, there's a difference between the Black Sea environment, which is a closed sea environment, versus open ocean in the Indo-Pacific.

But you have the Taiwan Strait, which does have a similar pattern in a similar environment to the Black Sea. It's more confined area. The water, the waters are a little bit different. And so that is a potential area of operations where you very much could mimic some of the Ukrainian naval drone tactics.

I think any country that is thinking about future maritime operations should be looking at the Black Sea. And that's not just because of implementing USVs, actually. So implementing USVs is one of the lessons, but countering USVs is actually a huge and potentially even bigger lesson, because most countries in the world, most countries in the world do not have a unmanned maritime arsenal.

They mostly have ships similar to the ones Russia has. Some better, some worse, but they have ships and they're planning to deploy those ships. And looking at the threats that Russia faced, how they tried to adapt and where they've been successful and unsuccessful, is absolutely an area of interest for countries like China that are thinking about their massive navy and how to protect it, or countries like the United States that are thinking about their massive navy, and potentially deploying their massive navy, and how to protect it.

And so I think there's a myriad of lessons. And no matter what side of the coin you find yourself on, whether you're a big traditional navy, whether you're a country that is facing a threat from a bigger country, there's a lesson for you there if you are on the water.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: You mentioned interest from the Nordic countries, and I was wondering, is there any kind of specific like aid, support, or maybe intel, any kind of support that you get from European partners, or they're just watching the, what's going on in the sea?

Catarina Buchatskiy: No, we get support from our European partners. I won't comment on what that support looks like, and I won't comment on that being enough. I mean, Ukraine is not winning the war, so the support isn't enough.

But we do get support from many of our partners, although the naval warfare has just been a very uniquely Ukrainian project.

I'll say though, we do get support in a myriad of ways.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the case. I was just wondering, like, I wanted to a little bit like talk about the supply chain and let's say like the Chinese role in supply chain for part of like building drones. If we could like shift conversation to that.

And I was just wondering like on the technical side, is there, like Europeans are helping with, or like you could, you know, procure something from European partners versus China?

Catarina Buchatskiy: Yeah, the supply chain issue is a complicated one. I can't say that we've seen large-scale enough initiatives to support localization of the supply chains.

There are alternatives to China. There are European alternatives for certain components, U.S. alternatives to certain components, Taiwanese, South Korean, et cetera. So, there's a possibility there, but we haven't seen a large-scale effort to localize that supply chain in particular.

We have seen a renewed European interest in the manufacturing base and investing more in their defense and, you know, the European Defense Fund and investing into that.

We haven't seen that it goes down to the components level. So, and that's the tricky part because saying that you're going to build a lot of drones is fine, and that's one thing, but it's a completely different thing than saying, well, we're actually going to be able to build a lot of motors to supply those drones. Which is a completely different type of manufacturing, completely different supply lines, and it's a much more complicated process.

Because again, how far down are you going to localize? Are we going to have a joint NATO effort to mine the critical minerals that are needed for those motors or for those batteries? Are we talking about localized supplies of lithium, of neodymium, of these things that go into magnets, that go into batteries, which China still has large control over?

So I think it's lacking a lot of nuance, and we need a more concentrated effort that goes down and really gets granular, which we haven't seen yet.

The U.S., obviously, is working on that, and so the drone dominance initiative and things like that. But the U.S. is very U.S.-focused, so it's hard to assess how much those initiatives are going to end up having an impact on Ukraine at all, and on the Ukrainian supply lines. Because it's kind of an open question whether Ukraine is going to be able to have access to those components that they're trying to localize in America.

And so we're watching that effort, and I think it's a really really good one, to, you know, try to re-industrialize and kind of localize the drone-industrial base in America.

I think it's important for the United States to have that. Open question what impact that's going to have on Ukraine. For Europe, there are certainly a lot of conversation. There's certainly a lot of interest, but I can't say that off the top of my head. I'm like, oh yes, Europe is implementing this specific program to make sure that they have enough motors or batteries to produce these drones.

I don't think the conversations have gotten down to that level yet. But Ukraine, I think is like eons ahead of other nations in terms of this. Like, this fall in Ukraine, it seems like the topic of the fall and winter has been components localization. Like just in the first week of December alone, there were like three different events by, you know, the Ukrainian ministries and things like that, that are focused specifically on localizing motors, batteries, components.

And you don't see that kind of real initiative anywhere else because, you know, we're a few years ahead. Like, we've built out our industrial base. Now we're looking further, we're looking deeper. We're looking at how can we get that down to be fully vertically integrated as much as possible.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: I’d like to bring China into this equation, and it is my understanding that in the beginning of the war, Ukraine was relying on importing foreign systems and then it shifted to assembling them domestically with foreign components. And then, China remains a key supplier of many critical parts.

So, how sensitive is this relationship and the procurement system? Do you see any dynamics—like, the procurement, like is it contingent on the Chinese foreign policy priorities? Do you see any tensions there?

Catarina Buchatskiy: Yeah, so China has been treading very carefully for the last few years in terms of taking a bold stance for either side. Publicly and in most of their public statements, they've been relatively kind of tiptoeing around neutrality and trying to stay out of it as much as possible politically, though we have felt impact on some of their policies. So China implemented export restrictions in 2023, where they essentially said that a lot of these components that go into drone manufacturing can now no longer be exported to Ukraine and Russia. So again, trying to continue to play this game.

Now, the real impact of that is a little trickier to assess, because it's not super heavily enforced. Also because China's primary interest is economic, and they make a ton of money from this, so it's not really in their interest to cut off their two main buyers.

It has been more difficult for some Ukrainian manufacturers to get Chinese parts because of these export restrictions. So, in our report, we have some of these numbers, but I think a large percentage of the manufacturers cited that they have delays in getting certain components, that there's sometimes been like added bureaucracy or things like that.

Some of them have had to go through third-party suppliers, so you know, buy from different countries. But, China sells to those countries and those countries sell back to us. So we've had to jump through certain hoops.

But it's very case-by-case. So on the other side, you see Ukrainian manufacturers that actually just travel to China themselves and post about it publicly and say, you know, I'm in China, I'm buying these components, I'm here to do business.

So, you have a lot of sides of this coin. However, I will say that they play certain games when it comes to Ukraine and Russian manufacturing capacity. So, Russia gets a lot of advantages in ways that Ukraine doesn't. Priority access, for one.

So, something that I found super interesting, which we cited in the report, was that some of the manufacturers said that they had a steady Chinese supplier. And then the Russians apparently kind of got ahold of the same supplier, and the Chinese supplier was like, sorry, they're going to take priority. And the Ukrainians basically didn't have access to that supply line anymore, which meant that they had to find a new buyer, which again means delays in producing the capabilities, means delays on getting things to the battlefield. It has an impact.

Another interesting example is, so, China also helping Russia localize a lot of these processes. So, we also got some stories, some anecdotal stories about manufacturers that were talking to their Chinese counterparts. And China, and the Chinese counterpart was essentially like, yeah, we sell to you again because Russia localized this assembly line, so now they can do it themselves and we're, we’re open for business again.

So, very weird and interesting model that they have going on. Can't say that they're fully industrially neutral, but they've been playing our game as well. So, we've been able to still buy the components for the most part. And our manufacturers have, some of them have very direct relationships.

We're also just walking on eggshells, because we understand that faucet can be turned off at any point. So it's not a very reliable partner at all, and that's something that we're very much afraid of.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: Besides China, I think, as I was looking at the legacy development, something else caught my attention, that Turkey closed the straits to the warships.

And I was just wondering on the role of Turkey. ’Cause they are a NATO member, but they also seem to be friendly with Kremlin. How do you see that?

Catarina Buchatskiy: Yeah, well I won't speak to like the political role of Turkey or anything of the sort, but I will say that Turkey closing the Bosphorus Strait at the beginning of the war was a big help to Ukraine, because it essentially meant that Russian warships from the Northern Fleet, from the Pacific Fleet that they have stationed all around the world could not provide reinforcements.

Which goes back to our earlier conversation about the fact that Russian maritime assets in the Black Sea are finite. And the reason they're finite, partially, is because they can't resupply them. So they can't call out their ships that are, you know, hovering around North, Northern Africa right now and say, come in and bring resupplies, because Turkey closed the strait.

Which means that it has turned the Black Sea into a little bit of a, kind of like, you know, a pond. And the Russian ships are now just fish in the pond. And it makes it a lot easier for us to maneuver knowing that there's not going to be certain reinforcements and things like that.

And so I do think that that helped. The flip side of the coin, which I've heard some people that also work on the Black Sea talk about is the fact that it also means that allied support can't come through for Ukraine, which means that we're also on our own.

I am not sure that they would've come anyways, so I am not sure that I find that argument convincing. I've heard other naval experts say that Turkey should reopen the strait because then, you know, NATO warships can come and patrol the Black Sea.

I mean, NATO fighter jets don't even want to patrol over western Ukraine and protect it from drones coming into Poland. So I am not sure that would have been the case anyways, so I see it as an asset.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: You are conducting briefings on the Hill. And I was wondering, to the extent you feel comfortable sharing maybe some observations or takeaways, what do you think is the U.S. interest, let's say? Because I sometimes come across some assessments that U.S. has interest in the Black Sea by itself, like in the U.S. foreign policy or like the technical dimension of it. Anything you've like, if you feel comfortable sharing.

Catarina Buchatskiy: So actually I think the biggest U.S. interest is in the supply chain research. That's what we found people to be most interested in, because they understand that they do not have a drone-industrial base, and they are going to have a very hard time building without China.

So to hear the Ukrainian experience, to hear what we're working on, what capabilities we have, what we've already localized, it's super interesting for the people working on reindustrialization in the U.S. right now.

On the maritime aspect: so we've seen that people that are actually in the U.S. Navy, or going to be in the U.S. Navy, are very interested because they understand that's their future.

Policymakers, not so much. I think that there is a huge hesitancy to, for any major restructuring, reinvesting, you know, acquiring these new capabilities, rethinking maritime doctrine. Anything that happens on those kinds of levels, people have a certain hesitation to. Also, because the U.S., I think, has different opinions on how a war on the sea would be conducted, if they were involved, and what the role of small USVs would be in it.

And they do make a lot of good points. Like actually, we're currently working on part two of our Black Sea research that's specifically focused on INDOPACOM. So, when that's out, we can re-chat about it because I think that'll be super interesting for the U.S. listeners. Because essentially what we're doing is comparing things like water conditions, you know, geography, tactics, doctrine, et cetera, that would be present in a like Taiwan invasion scenario and understanding the role of small USVs from Ukraine's experience in that.

But to get back to the question, what we've seen is the people that are actually going to potentially be at the on the frontline in a naval war are very much interested. And they are listening and they're reading. And one of my favorite things that we did when we were last in the U.S. was we did a big lecture at the Naval College in Annapolis, and it was to a room of, I don't know, like 300 midshipmen that were students there that are going to go on to be in the U.S. Navy or in the Marines.

And they were at rapt attention and they were all, you know, super interested, taking notes, asking questions after, because they understood like that's their future. The policymakers and the people at the top are always going to be a little bit slower to catch on. And so that's been our experience.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: Is there a takeaway or lesson from the Black Sea experience that military planners should be paying attention?

Catarina Buchatskiy: I would just say like, I think one of the most interesting things here in both, like the supply chain and everything that's going on in the Black Sea, it's really this R&D aspect. And it's really less about acquiring a Ukrainian drone or you know, buying from Ukrainian manufacturers and more about understanding the processes behind how we were able to scale this type of fighting across, you know, our army. How we were able to scale our manufacturing base, what kind of tactics we're employing, how we're innovating every day in terms of light modularity, adapting our drones to perform different tasks.

It's something living. It's something very much not static. And I think that, in a lot of the discourse about lessons from Ukraine, it feels static. It feels like, oh, well the lesson from Ukraine is you should buy drones from Ukraine. Or, you should make drones and buy drones in America.

But it's about much more than that. It's about a, lessons and integration across the entire army in tactics, and the way you actually fight and think about a war. How you're going to conduct your patrolling, your reconnaissance. Who's even in the fight? Do you have, do you create a completely different branch in the army that's called the unmanned systems force and have them focus on unmanned systems? There's so many more questions that go beyond the traditional, like, you should have drones, or you should have unmanned systems.

And so I think Ukraine actually just has a lot more to offer as a case study than just, you know, looking at what drones they're using and wanting to buy those drones. I think that it's a really really huge R&D powerhouse that's constantly innovating, that's always going to kind of come up with something new, and that has the production capacity to conduct these types of wars at scale.

I think that people particularly interested in modern warfare and unmanned systems warfare should take a look at Ukraine as more of a, as a real resource. Not just, like, look at what they're doing and learn from it, but actually understand that we have capacity to contribute in a lot of ways.

I mean, one interesting note to end on is Ukraine, a few months ago, president Zelensky announced that we were going to start exporting our naval drones. So that's super interesting. If you have been tracking the war in the Black Sea, and you think that this is a capability that you might need whether to defend yourself or whether to conduct, you know, offensive operations against an adversary in the future, think about the fact that Ukraine is ready to export.

Ukraine is ready to be a partner. We can give things, you know, you don't just like look at it and learn, but we can actually be integrated into this global security architecture because of all the capabilities we have and the knowledge we've learned.

Katsiaryna Shmatsina: That is a great place to live it. I will watch the Ukraine exporting military drowns. That's you know, great development. Cat, thank you so much for this great conversation.

Catarina Buchatskiy: Thank you for having me.

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