Ukraine’s Armed Forces require a mass of analogue weapon systems, which have been found, for the most part, to be more reliable than complex technologies when facing the realities of the frontline.
Speaking at an Integrated Air and Missile Defence conference hosted by the Royal United Services Institute on 24 April 2025, Oleksandra Azarkhina, formerly Ukraine’s deputy minister for infrastructure, and now co-founder of the We Build Ukraine foundation, considered Ukraine’s air defence requirements.
Azarkhina pointed to the effectiveness of the 155mm M777 howitzer, a BAE Systems artillery unit built in the United States, which has been in service with the Marine Corps for the last 25 years. This system, she said, “works better than the Panzerhaubite, they work better than the Krab, and many others because they did not have things [that could be] jammed.”
Automated howitzers that came after M777 have complex electronic systems for loading, aiming, and firing, making them more susceptible to jamming.
These simpler, mechanical designs are what Ukraine needs, she asserted. “With all the technologies, with all the [artificial intelligence], sometimes you really just need to have a mechanical switch.”
At the same time, Azarkhina does not rule out the utility of more modern and sophisticated systems. “Of course, there is a lot of knowledge gained, and the things which we’re doing there in many cases are super innovative,” she stipulated.
Ukraine’s defence industry: old and new
Ukraine’s defence industry is learning this lesson. The country has ramped up production of one its sovereign systems: the 155mm 2S22 Bohdana wheeled artillery system. While the Bohdana does use electrical systems, it is backed up with mechanical alternatives.
While the Defence Procurement Agency only provided a figure of “more than 20” Bohdanas per month.
Similarly, drones are also adapting to the mechanical trend with the use of wired, first-person view uncrewed air vehicles (UAVs) that use fibre-optic cables. The idea of this type of UAV is to deny the enemy any chance of jamming the system.
However, side-stepping the threat of electronic warfare in this way brings limits the range of the drones themselves to 20 kilometres (or 12 miles). This means that they would typically be deployed for tactical use.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, Ukraine’s forces intend to scale up production of these fibre-optic UAVs over the next three months (until July 2025).
