Ship tonnage and gun caliber no longer define sea power, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief tells forum aboard British carrier

Naval warfare is undergoing a profound transformation, according to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's former commander-in-chief and Ukraine's ambassador to the UK. Speaking at the Atlantic Future Forum in Oslo aboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, Zaluzhnyi highlighted the rise of drones as the primary driver of this change.

He drew on Ukraine's combat experience in the Black and Red Seas to demonstrate that even a small number of naval drones can effectively challenge a larger conventional fleet. This was evident when Ukraine's unmanned boats forced Russia's once-mighty Black Sea Fleet to retreat from Sevastopol. Over the course of four years, Ukraine transitioned from primitive drone strikes to coordinated, multidomain operations at sea.

In the Black Sea, Ukrainian unmanned vessels destroyed at least a third of the pre-war Black Sea Fleet, including the cruiser Moskva, the landing ship Caesar Kunikov, and the corvette Ivanovets. These successes forced Russia to shift its focus to civilian ships, striking 55 NATO vessels and nine Ukrainian ships among 131 total hits.

This shift has prompted other small states to consider adopting Ukraine's "hybrid mosquito fleet" approach, leveraging unmanned systems, autonomy, and artificial intelligence to counter large navies. Zaluzhnyi emphasized that sea power will increasingly be defined by these unmanned systems rather than traditional metrics like ship tonnage and gun caliber.

The Ukrainian experience underscores the importance of integrating anti-drone defense alongside air, missile, and mine defenses. Most crucially, Zaluzhnyi stressed that the true impact of unmanned naval warfare lies not just in replacing one type of weaponry with another, but in implementing a comprehensive set of measures, including state policy, to fully leverage these innovations and enhance military effectiveness.