For the past five years, I have had a front row seat to the most significant transformation of European security since the end of the Cold War.
I have witnessed this transformation from two very different vantage points. As a journalist covering Russia’s war against Ukraine, I reported from cities under missile attack, interviewed soldiers defending their country, and saw ordinary civilians become the backbone of Ukraine’s resilience.
Musicians, poets, teachers, and entrepreneurs became soldiers, volunteers, and innovators. Factories that once produced furniture or household electronics began manufacturing drones and military equipment. A peaceful nation fighting for survival became one of the world’s leading defense industry innovators.
I can also remember attending NATO exercises following Russia’s full-scale invasion and watching Allied forces rehearse scenarios that still assumed technological superiority and uncontested logistics. In parallel, I was seeing Ukrainian soldiers improvise with commercial drones and software updates written overnight. It was already becoming clear that the future battlefield would look very different from the one NATO was trained for.
Stay updated
