If you want to visualize Ukraine’s Delta digital battle management system, there’s a very basic parallel in the British air operations rooms of the Battle of Britain in World War II. Here, it was that information from radar, human observers, gun batteries, and other sources was worked together to provide a unified visual image to commanders trying to understand combat across a huge battle area.
The British developed and improved the system while under fire as they fought a battle of survival against Nazi Germany. Ukraine now does the same in its existential war against Putin’s Russia, and the results of its technological advances are equally significant. Unlike the analog systems of old, though, the Ukrainian model is fully digitized and accommodates AI to speed conclusions and spread awareness. Like its predecessors, Delta shows enemy and friendly forces in something close to real time.
For many outsiders, drones have become one of the defining features of the war in Ukraine, partly because they are so visible and create large video-friendly explosions. But in reality, their effectiveness increasingly depends on software and how it is integrated into a larger system.
The gold standard is now the ability to detect a target, relay that information, and destroy it. Effective software compresses the time between detection and strike.
In the early months of the war, Ukrainian drone operations were often improvised. Soldiers I spoke to recalled deploying commercially available drones and setting up simple video streams to maintain basic situational awareness. In some cases, units relied on shared online video feeds to conduct reconnaissance. Units deployed whatever equipment they could obtain.
These early efforts were chaotic but effective enough to provide valuable information in a fast-moving war. Over time, the situation changed. As the war settled into a grinding conflict and the front line became more static, the need for more structured systems grew. Ukrainian forces needed a way to detect movement quickly and share that information across units.
Every movement on the battlefield matters. Russian assault groups, mechanized armor, reconnaissance teams, or attempts to probe Ukrainian positions must be identified quickly. Each incident must be logged and mapped so commanders can build a clearer picture of activity along the front, and for drone operators to strike identified targets.
Software began to play a central role in this process. Drone feeds were integrated into systems designed to track activity and record events across large sections of the battlefield. Units could log sightings and share them with other units in near real time. With time, it helped bring about the journey towards automated warfare.
What began as improvised video streams evolved into a more structured form of digital battlefield awareness. “Coordination, targeting, logistics, communication — everything now relies on software,” said Lyuba Shipovich, CEO of the Ukrainian technology NGO Dignitas Ukraine.
In a previous CEPA frontline report, I described how Ukrainian drone teams map Russian positions in real time. “Behind the front lines, Ukrainian operators monitor live feeds from Mavic drones, marking the coordinates of Russian positions and areas where troops might be hiding. These locations are plotted on a digital map and shared across units.”
Ruslan Prylypko is head of command and control information systems at Aerorozvidka, the famed Ukrainian tech volunteer group that has done so much to advance the nation’s drone capabilities, and that created the early Delta system in 2015. He said that for operators on the ground, integrating drone feeds directly into battlefield software is critical. Much of this relies on platforms such as Vezha, which aggregate multiple live drone feeds and allow operators to analyze footage and place markers directly on the Delta battlefield map.
In September 2024, Ukrainian officials said the Avengers AI platform was analyzing drone and camera footage to identify up to 12,000 pieces of Russian equipment each week within Delta and its Vezha video sub-system. Using AI only helps to speed up the kill chain.
“Without systems like this it is practically impossible to wage war today,” said Illia Malko, a drone intelligence operator with the Khartiia Brigade’s strike drone unit Yasni Ochi. “Live streams from drones feed directly into Delta, allowing operators to add targets to the map almost immediately.”
European militaries only recently began to grasp the implications. During the Hedgehog exercise in Estonia last year, more than 16,000 troops from 12 NATO countries trained together. Ten Ukrainian drone specialists were embedded with Estonian units. They brought Delta with them. According to a former Estonian drone specialist on the exercise, the results for the British and Estonian opposing force were “horrible”, the Wall Street Journal reported. The drone forces eliminated two battalions in a day and left their parent units unable to fight.
The exercise showed how transparent the modern battlefield has become and how quickly software-driven systems compress the time between detection and strike. “For allied forces, these processes and the speed of decision-making proved unexpected,” Prylypko said.
“What is routine for Ukrainian forces became a revelation during international exercises,” he added. Without integrated digital awareness, conventional formations remain highly vulnerable.
When Western officers encountered the system for the first time, “They’re amazed,” said Shipovich. “Many Western militaries still rely on Cold War-era procedures. When we showed Delta to British, Polish, and Dutch officers, they were shocked by what it could do.” She added that tools like Delta “have dramatically reduced friendly fire and enabled real-time command and control.”
Interest in the system is already growing, with Ukrainian officials stating in April 2025 that at least one NATO country has explored adopting the platform. “Every military should have a system like Delta,” said Malik. “Ideally allied forces would operate within the same software environment.”
Some Western software does exist, but it doesn’t fully fill the gaps and serves a complementary role. “Palantir has great visualization tools, but Delta is better for data collection,” said Shipovich. “Palantir is mostly used at command centers with strong internet. Delta and Kropyva can work offline, which is a huge advantage.”
As global demand for Ukrainian drone technology grows, buyers should recognize that the hardware works best when paired with the software systems that support it. Ultimately, this is another layer of what makes effective drone warfare possible, and why the technology cannot simply be replicated without the operational expertise behind it.
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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