“I nearly escaped the jaws of death a few days ago when a Shahed landed near my apartment,” a friend from Kyiv texted me, barely two weeks after I left the city. Her message was not unusual. In today’s Ukraine, people have learned to identify the threat not by sight, but by sound. They know the whirring of a reconnaissance quadcopter, the low growl of a Russian Orlan-10, or the menacing chainsaw-like buzz of the Iranian-origin Shahed kamikaze drone.

The sky tells its own story every night and Ukrainians have learned to read it for survival.

Almost four-years into the full-scale invasion by Russia, one unmistakable transformation defines this war: its high-tech, drone-driven nature. To use a cliché; it was described as the weapon of David in the battle between David vs Goliath.

Drones are no longer the preserve of militaries alone; they are part of everyday vocabulary. The residents of Kyiv can distinguish which direction a loitering munition is coming from. Residents instinctively move away from windows when they hear the now-familiar mechanical hum overhead.

I became particularly interested in the subject because nearly six-months ago, my own native region was pulled into the shadow of drone warfare.

From May 7-10, in the tense days following the 2025 Pahalgam terrorist attack, India and Pakistan exchanged drones across the border. For four nights, sleep became impossible for many of us who had direct or indirect connection with the border areas.

Most of the damage occurred after the drones were shot down, when high-velocity debris fell and struck the surrounding buildings. I knew a few families whose rooftops were torn open, whose windows shattered, whose children woke in terror at sounds they could not comprehend. And yet, to be precise, what unfolded was not drone warfare in the true sense as it was merely a glimpse, a faint and unsettling preview of what the future may hold. Luckily, no one was injured or died as a result of drones.

Following Russian President Putin’s State visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly prepares to welcome Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to India. In view of this, Kyiv has conveyed a message to New Delhi with striking clarity. I was told in Kyiv by a senior official in the Ukraine military investment portfolio, who knew the exact details, was categorical: no Ukrainian drone has ever been supplied to Pakistan. “Like many countries, including Pakistan, Islamabad had expressed a letter of intent in earlier years to buy UAV technology and this is where the matter stands.” But the official insisted that the conversations never materialised into any export, transfer, or co-production.

In their telling, at no point did Ukraine’s drone industry, or its political leadership, authorise the sale of military-grade UAVs to Pakistan. This assertion becomes particularly important, especially in light of reports during Operation Sindoor alleging that Pakistani forces were being supplied with drones originating from Ukraine. This claim has circulated but remained difficult to independently verify.

This assurance helps put into perspective the complexities of a defence industry that, especially after 2022, has become one of the world’s most scrutinised. It is a fact that the Ukrainian battlefield experience has ignited global interest, as drones have arguably emerged as the single most transformative instrument of warfare in the Russia–Ukraine conflict. For countries like India, where drone production is expanding rapidly in the private-public space, the implications are particularly significant or important to factor in.

No other weapon system has risen to prominence as swiftly, nor reshaped battlefield calculations as dramatically. With each passing month, refinements in drone technology, from first-person-view kamikaze units to long-range strategic systems, have redrawn the contours of the conflict. What might have once been a lopsided confrontation, given Russia’s overwhelming superiority in tanks, armour and infantry numbers, has been fundamentally altered.

For Ukraine, a country facing a far larger military adversary, drones, I was told, became not just tools of war but equalizers as innovations that offset traditional disadvantages and, in many instances, turned vulnerability into tactical advantage. By now, across the world, everyone has seen how the tanks without the support of drone are a sitting duck targets of the cheap drones. But the game is constantly evolving.

What struck me most was not just the machines themselves, but the concepts behind them, the understanding that a remotely operated device can both eliminate an enemy position and save a wounded comrade without risking another human life. Ukrainian units now routinely deploy drones to reach injured soldiers trapped under fire; the small machine hovers low, providing cover or creating a diversion until the wounded man can climb on and be pulled to safety. In a war defined by distance and precision, even rescue has become unmanned.

But nothing has transformed the battlefield as dramatically as FPV (First-Person View) kamikaze drones. Piloted through video goggles, they are cheap, fast, and lethally precise. For as little as USD 300–500, an FPV drone can destroy equipment worth millions like a tank, an artillery piece, or an armored vehicle. Ukraine now manufactures these drones on an industrial scale, producing tens of thousands each month and training specialised drone strike brigades to operate them. And then there are the long-range deep-strike drones, capable of travelling 600–1,000 km or more. These are the systems that have shaken assumptions about distance and safety, reaching deep into Russian territory.

If Russia’s advantage is industrial mass, Ukraine’s answer has been ingenuity. Drone production has multiplied several times over, driven by volunteers, private companies, diaspora support, and a wartime State that views drones as the equaliser. From small quadcopters costing a few hundred dollars to heavy long-range strike drones capable of hitting refineries inside Russia, Ukraine has built a diverse, layered drone ecosystem.

While Moscow has reportedly carried out missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and cities in past winters and ahead of this winter, Kyiv has stepped up drone attacks on oil depots, airfields and other targets inside Russia. Entire swarms, sometimes six or seven drones at a time, are launched with the understanding that most will be intercepted. The intent is that even if several are knocked out by air defence, one or two may break through to strike their intended targets. This logic of saturation is now central to modern warfare. On 10 November 2024, this became the basis of one of the largest drone assault on Moscow since the start of the war took place as an estimated 70 drones launched toward the Russian capital.

A similar pattern played out during the India–Pakistan skirmish in May, when both countries deployed surveillance drones to probe and map each other’s air-defence readiness. The objective was not merely to gather intelligence but to understand how many systems would be activated, how quickly they would respond, and whether a concentrated wave of drones could penetrate the defensive grid. In many ways, the Ukrainian-Russian battlefield, high-tech, adaptive, and drone-saturated, offers a glimpse of what future conflicts elsewhere in the world may increasingly resemble.

In the end, from my own sleepless nights during the India–Pakistan drone exchanges to the conversations in Kyiv, one lesson stands out: drones may dominate the skies, but it is human ingenuity and clarity of intention that ultimately define their meaning. From Kyiv’s standpoint, that meaning is unmistakable which is defence, survival, and a refusal to be broken

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday (December 30, 2025) said “tensions between India and Pakistan” were among the list of hotspot issues “mediated” by China this year.

New Delhi has been maintaining that the May 7-10 conflict between India and Pakistan was resolved through direct talks between the DGMOs (Director General of Military Operations) of the armies of the two countries.  At the May 13 press briefing, the Ministry of External Affairs had said, “regarding ceasefire and what sort of role other countries played, etc. See, the specific date, time and wording of the understanding was worked out between the DGMOs of the two countries at their phone call on 10th May 2025, commencing at 15:35 hours.” India has also been consistently maintaining that there is no place for any third-party intervention in matters relating to India and Pakistan.

“This year, local wars and cross-border conflicts flared up more often than at any time since the end of WWII. Geopolitical turbulence continued to spread”, Mr. Wang said, speaking at the symposium on the “International Situation and China’s Foreign Relations” in Beijing.

“To build peace that lasts, we have taken an objective and just stance, and focused on addressing both symptoms and root causes”, he added.  “Following this Chinese approach to settling hotspot issues, we mediated in northern Myanmar, the Iranian nuclear issue, the tensions between Pakistan and India, the issues between Palestine and Israel, and the recent conflict between Cambodia and Thailand”, he said.

China’s role in the May 7-10 Operation Sindoor conflict between India and Pakistan this year came under serious scrutiny and criticism, especially the military assistance provided by Beijing to Islamabad.

On the diplomatic front, China, on May 7, called on India and Pakistan to exercise restraint even while expressing regret over India’s airstrikes.   “China finds India’s military operation early this morning regrettable”, said a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement on the first day of Operation Sindoor, reacting to questions on India’s airstrikes and escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.

“China opposes all forms of terrorism”, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said in an apparent reference to the Pahalgam terrorist attack and urged both sides to exercise restraint in the interest of peace.

Also read | The new battle challenge of China-Pakistan collusion 

But China’s active military support to Pakistan during Operation Sindoor in May has become a sharp reminder about the negative impact of China-Pakistan close ties on Beijing’s relations with New Delhi.    For its part, China, whose arms exports amount to over 81% of Pakistan’s military hardware, sought to downplay India’s Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Rahul R Singh’s assertion that Beijing used the conflict as a “live lab”, declining to directly answer his charge.

Gen. Singh said China’s strategy during Operation Sindoor was based on its ancient military strategy of “36 stratagems” and killing the adversary with a “borrowed knife” to buttress the point that Beijing extended all possible support to Pakistan to cause pain to India.

Good momentum

In his speech on China’s foreign policy initiatives, Mr. Wang spoke of the good momentum of improvement of relations between India and China and spoke of Beijing’s invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held in Tianjin in August this year.

“Also, this year, we invited the leaders of India and the DPRK to China. China-India relations showed a good momentum, and the traditional friendship with the DPRK was cemented and further promoted”, he said, adding that the SCO summit was a resounding success.

China’s engagement with neighbouring countries entered a new stage of building a community with a shared future at a faster pace, he said.

On the BRICS, he said, “the 20-member BRICS family grew more prosperous. And BRICS cooperation was ever more robust under the expanded format”.

“This year, economic globalisation met serious setbacks. The tariff war dealt a blow to international trade rules and disrupted the global economic order. The choice between openness and isolation became imperative”, he said in apparent reference to U.S. President Donald Trump unleashing unilateral tariffs against China and other countries.

He said the China-U.S. relationship was one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in today’s world.

“The strategic choices of the two countries will shape the course of world history”, he said.

“On major issues of principle, we maintained firm and unequivocal positions. On issues concerning China’s core interests, we responded with strength and held our ground”, he said.

“At the same time, we engaged and talked with the U.S. to seek cooperation, foster a more rational, objective view of China, and address differences through consultation and dialogue,” he said.   Both Mr. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, with their frequent interactions, “guided the giant ship of China-U.S. relations through troubled waters and steered it in the right direction”, he said.

China and the U.S. must seek solutions to their respective concerns based on equality, mutual respect and reciprocity, and find the right way for the two major countries to get along with each other.

Published – December 31, 2025 12:12 am IST