U.S. and NATO troops must learn everything they can from the hard-earned lessons of the battlefields of Ukraine, two senior Ukrainian army leaders said July 16 during the Association of the U.S. Army’s inaugural LANDEURO Symposium in Wiesbaden, Germany.

“Our battle is not only our battle. It’s a battle for all of us as a civilization against terrorists,” Commander Robert Brovdi, commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, said through an interpreter. “We paid with lives for this expertise, but you can get this expertise out of us, and we will support you as you’ve supported us in this war.”

Speaking on a panel highlighting Ukraine’s rapid battlefield adaptation, Maj. Gen. Volodymyr Horbatiuk, deputy chief of the general staff for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said a pivotal battle in March 2022 in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv was a “groundbreaking precedent” for the war the Ukrainians are still fighting today. “This was the start of the age of modern warfare,” Horbatiuk said.

As the fighting has continued, Ukrainian troops have displayed 1,239 days of “unwavering Ukrainian resilience,” he said, eliminating an average of 1,000 enemy personnel every 24 hours. They are fighting in all domains, including the cyber domain, and they are used to adapting and improvising, Horbatiuk said.

“A war of attrition means a deficit of everything—constant and everywhere,” reads a slide Horbatiuk displayed during his remarks. He also emphasized that while technology matters, it only matters in human hands.

Ukraine’s will, endurance and adaptability are to be admired, said Lt. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, commander of U.S. Army Security Assistance Group-Ukraine and NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine.

“Those three things are lessons in and of themselves when you think about the scale of this conflict, how long they’ve been fighting and how they’ve adapted, Buzzard said.

Citing the common adage, “Adapt or die,” Buzzard said, “They live that every day.”

“They have a sense of urgency, they have a culture and a mindset of adapting, and they’ve been doing this while the character of war is changing—whether it’s drones, open-source intelligence, social media, the electromagnetic spectrum, human-machine integration and the importance of live data and the quantity of data and how you manage that,” Buzzard said.

The U.S. Army, the joint force and NATO must learn as much as they can from Ukraine, Buzzard said. Institutionally, it’s an incredible challenge to man, train and equip a force to conduct large-scale combat operations not seen since World War II, he said. “How do you reconstitute forces in contact? How do you replace leaders?”

There also are operational and tactical lessons, from defending yourself and your forces while maneuvering and dealing with the proliferation of drones.

“I’m very focused on doing everything I can to support our Ukrainian partners, but we must be focused on learning everything we can,” Buzzard said. “I do think this fight is the ultimate battle lab. It’s where you prove if things work or they don’t.”

Brovdi said he leads 12 military units of pilots, and about 95% of them are civilians. “Seniors, DJs, artists and other people who were not doing military service before,” he said. And while his forces make up just 2% of the Ukrainian army, they account for every third enemy fighter killed and every fourth strike on the battlefield, he said through the interpreter.

“Putin was trying to conquer us in three days,” Brovdi said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We’ve spent almost four years defending our land, our children and our civilian people.”

The seasoned battlefield commander said he and his troops do not expect the war to end anytime soon, and he cited Russia’s use of Shahed one-way attack drones, sometimes hundreds a day, as a weapon that has brought terror and destruction to Ukraine’s people and infrastructure.

Yet, his troops persist, Brovdi said. “We know what to do on the battlefield, and thanks to the partners who’ve supported us, with their support, we can go further,” he said.

Brovdi, who said he would be back in the fight just a day after speaking on the panel, encouraged Ukraine’s partners to learn what they can. “Our experience is super valuable for all of you here, as no other country has this experience nowadays,” he said.

Horbatiuk echoed Brovdi’s sentiment. “Learn from us. Help us to resist, and help us to prevent Russian aggression,” he said.

Buzzard urged his peers and counterparts to pay attention to the Ukrainians. “We should be asking ourselves constantly, are we learning everything we can?” he said. “I think we should all be challenging ourselves. Am I doing enough to learn from this conflict? Because someday down the road, it’s going to cost us in treasure.”