Mark McNamee on Ukraine’s Drone Procurement and Battlefield Adaptation

Mark McNamee is a Kyiv-based analyst and commentator on Ukraine’s wartime political economy, defense technology, and military adaptation. Living in Ukraine during the full-scale invasion, he examines procurement reform, drone production, Western investment, battlefield innovation, and the institutional changes reshaping the country’s defense sector. His commentary highlights how Ukrainian firms, soldiers, and state agencies turn urgency into rapid experimentation, producing lessons for NATO, Europe, and democratic militaries facing modern industrial warfare under sustained pressure today.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen asks Mark McNamee about Ukraine’s drone procurement, battlefield adaptation, and unanswered questions around reclaiming territory. McNamee explains the “Amazon for drones,” a Defense Procurement Agency system matching front-line needs with available technologies within days. He argues institutionalized efficiency helped Ukraine regain technological advantage, while robots, FPVs, reconnaissance drones, and AI-enabled systems reduce casualties, increase destruction, and raise the possibility of taking territory with less infantry despite Russia’s adaptations and manpower constraints today.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Where is there something where you look at the funding rounds, the technology, the needs of the front line, and the trajectory toward finally pushing back and reclaiming territory, and you look at it and do not really have an answer? Are there major question marks as to why that is the case technologically, financially, or in terms of political will? Where it does not make a lot of sense, but it is just a fact of human iteration, operation, and adaptation in the middle of a long-term war.

Mark McNamee: Yes. I will give you an example of something they have institutionalized over the last year or so. I am not sure if you have come across this, but they call it the “Amazon for drones.”

Jacobsen: I have heard about this.

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McNamee: Basically, the Defense Procurement Agency here got a new head, Arsen Zhumadilov, who spoke at our event over a year ago. He started in March or April of last year. They started what is essentially called the “Amazon for drones.”

What had been happening before was kind of what you were talking about: this hodgepodge where anybody and their brother was doing what they could. Someone would say, “Within my network, I know this guy, and my cousin is friends with that guy’s brother who knows somebody,” and then things would start happening.

They went from that, which was admirable but obviously not efficient. As impressive as that scrappiness is, you do not get as much bang for your buck when all of this is happening informally among millions of people. What was happening was that you were getting duplication of things. Of course, at the front, they need anything and everything, so it was useful and effective. But what they ended up developing through the Defense Procurement Agency was this sort of “Amazon for drones.”

The soldiers at the front, and I mean soldiers literally in the trenches, can use digital technology to go online and say, “We need A, C, and D. What do you have at the DPA?” The agency can respond, “We do not have A and B, but we have C, and we have something that is kind of like D,” and then they match it up. This happens within a matter of days.

The point is that it helped institutionalize the process and create channels that became very effective and efficient. I believe, and I have heard this from miltech people, that this is one of the reasons Ukraine has been taking back the technological advantage over the last few months. They streamlined many of these processes and overhauled the system. Ukraine was struggling in the war in 2024 and 2025 as it was rejigging the system. But now that this system is in place, and it is so effective and efficient, things are happening quickly.

Again, you get remarkable innovation, it is turned around quickly, produced at scale, and then it is on the battlefield having a huge effect. That is the best example I can probably give: the institutional framework at the Defense Procurement Agency.

That is probably the coolest thing. It is the process in action. There was a bunch of stuff going on before, and people were asking, “Where is everybody, and how is this happening?” Then they organized it, and now it is a highly effective fighting machine. That is how you produce millions of drones. You increase efficiencies massively.

Jacobsen: Even with more drones, should we expect more personnel casualties or more infrastructure and equipment destruction?

McNamee: More destruction. We are already seeing it. Ukraine is losing fewer personnel, and Russia is losing more. That advantage has already improved massively in the last year, particularly in the last few months. Ukraine has also said it plans to replace up to 30 to 40 percent of infantry functions at the front with robots and machines.

That gets into another question, though. That is fantastic. You reduce casualties. You may be able to hold the front. But can you take back territory with just drones, UGVs, and other systems? I cannot answer that question. I have had that discussion with numerous military experts. Western military analysts, frankly, tend to say no, that it is impossible and that it is a foolish conversation. But they are also referring to every war that has ever occurred in history and saying, “No, that is impossible.”

I have talked to people who have experienced the front. Giorgio, who was at the event, is one person I spoke with about that. They feel a little more sanguine, or at least a little more optimistic, that maybe you can. We referred to an example from just a couple of months ago, when Ukraine took a number of Russians, I do not know exactly how many,

There was an example involving several robots, essentially a combined-arms operation using Ukrainian ground robots, AI-enabled strike drones, reconnaissance drones in the air, and FPV drones. They were able to take a position and eliminate a number of Russian troops.

So it was essentially machine against man, and the machines won. That is fairly encouraging. You hear stories like that from the front almost every week, where these machines are dominating the combat landscape. It raises the question of whether it may be possible to take back some territory without, or with much less, infantry.

I have heard repeatedly that manpower is a problem for Ukraine, of course, but it has become more of a problem for Russia lately. That reinforces the argument that, if Russia faces severe manpower shortages and these drones are as effective as they appear to be, it may be possible to take and hold territory despite Ukraine’s infantry challenges.

Jacobsen: Do we see any of these adaptations happening on the Russian side?

McNamee: Yes, of course. We should not underestimate that. They have done a great deal, and they have institutionalized some of it as well. They have this Rubicon unit, which has been very effective. That was massively problematic for Ukraine because Russia did gain the technological edge for a while, not decisively and not for the long term, but they held it for a considerable period, including much of last year. They also produced more systems, so Ukraine faced a double challenge. Both of those factors, however, have now reversed in Ukraine’s favor.

Russia has relied primarily on imported technologically sophisticated systems, while Ukraine has relied on innovation, supported by foreign capital but developed locally by Ukrainians. There is innovation and learning on the Russian side as well, but this is also a function of the political system. If you do not have the primacy of the individual, hierarchies emerge in which loyalty becomes more important than competence.

When individuals begin succeeding, they can appear to be threats to the political hierarchy rather than talents to embrace and maximize. That is not entirely black and white, but it happens less on the Ukrainian side because Ukraine is a Western-oriented nation with a different political, economic, and social culture.

So yes, adaptation is happening on the Russian side, just not at the same level as on the Ukrainian side. We see that empirically on the battlefield.

Jacobsen: In some ways, during my time here, I have come to appreciate the nuances of the culture: its rhythms, processes, and working style. It relates to the point you are making about competence and individualism because people function professionally and socially, particularly in wartime, in a very lateral way. Their networking is remarkably robust.

As a journalist, I get to spend my time moving among all these different initiatives, morning, night, seven days a week. It is really quite amazing. I get invited to these great events, that is where we met, and they operate with the urgency of the next essential threat.

They generally do not have the time to waste on petty sociopolitical distractions that exist in some other countries in what people loosely call the West. Geopolitically, that term does not entirely make sense anymore, South Korea and Japan are not in the Western Hemisphere, but people generally understand what it means.

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In some sense, they are orienting toward the West while, in some ways, embodying certain Western values more strongly than many countries traditionally associated with the West. It is quite interesting.

McNamee: No, and I think that is partly the result of living with this sort of existential pressure. It demands more of you. Many of the problems in the West, and this is going slightly off topic, are born out of luxury. There is political, social, and economic security, so there is less that pushes people to do something above and beyond themselves or to do something truly heroic.

Jacobsen: Personally, I love work. I have always loved work. I also like the fact that, in wartime, people are willing to try things out and answer a call either immediately or the same day. It is great. Even on weekends, people are responsive. You can iterate and get things done. I love that aspect of being in a wartime-building environment. The bombardments, I could do without.

McNamee: Much better without them.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Mark.

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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer-Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 1,900 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.