Ukraine's war has accelerated technology and tactics evolution. To sustain advantage, Ukraine must strengthen processes for capturing lessons, adapting NATO best practices to fit its unique mix of hierarchy and informal innovation, ensuring long-term military and industrial success.

Lessons learned

Understanding the role of military organisational and adaptation culture for the future of Ukraine's defence

Stuart Dee, Katja Fedina, Kiran Suman-Chauhan, Evie Graham, Daniel Hill, Andrew Gibson, John Kendall, John Foreman

ResearchPublished Nov 20, 2025

The pace of technological development and evolution of warfighting seen in the conflict in Ukraine is unprecedented in recent history. Ukraine would benefit from fortifying its procedures for capturing this learning, enhancing its ability to leverage competitive advantage moving forward in both military and defence-industrial spheres.

Ukraine's military and organisational culture is unique. It combines aspects of Soviet hierarchy with a high degree of focus on informal networks and innovation, driven by a multi-generational force mix. Ukraine's approach to lessons learned is shaped by this context.

The NATO Lessons Learned process is a useful baseline for Ukraine's Armed Forces, but not a perfect institutional and cultural fit. Ukraine can modify elements of best practice from NATO and allies to develop robust procedures which exhibit good practice and position Ukraine for longer-term success.

Recommendations

  • Embedding lessons learned through a formalised approach to off-rotation training, whether through full-unit rotation or utilising experienced individuals to brief new units as they rotate to the front line. This will augment existing informal networks to embed a culture of sharing new developments.
  • Implementing Lessons Learned Officers (LLOs), Analysis Functions (AFs) and Cross-Functional Team (CFT) structures into military organisational development in Ukraine, building on previous successes experienced by the British Army and the Swedish Armed Forces. Collectively these roles will institutionalise the significance of a lessons-learned culture, retaining Ukraine's advantage in technology and tactics.
  • Prioritising the flow of lessons learned to more operationally experienced units in the first instance, to drive a culture of lessons learned 'by example' which will naturally then begin to flow to the wider force, while avoiding the opportunity cost implications of embedding changes during conflict across an entire force structure.

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Dee, Stuart, Katja Fedina, Kiran Suman-Chauhan, Evie Graham, Daniel Hill, Andrew Gibson, John Kendall, and John Foreman, Lessons learned: Understanding the role of military organisational and adaptation culture for the future of Ukraine's defence. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3833-5.html.
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