The Key To Ukraine's Victory Over Russia: A Turning Point Has Arrived
- 13.09.2026, 8:14
The former U.S. Secretary of the Army's first public statement.
Former U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll stated that a turning point has been reached in the war—and that technological advantage that will give Ukraine a chance to defeat Russia. This is his first public statement since resigning from the Trump administration.
This was reported by CBS News.
Dan Driscoll spoke in Kyiv at the Yalta European Strategy forum—an annual conference organized by Viktor Pinchuk’s foundation on Ukraine’s place in the Western security architecture. This marked his first public appearance since leaving the Trump administration.
According to him, warfare is currently undergoing a turning point: even the world’s most powerful armies cannot keep up with the pace and scale of innovation dictated by the modern battlefield. Driscoll wore a tie featuring a Ukrainian pattern during his speech.
Joining him on stage was Eric Schmidt—the former CEO of Google and current head of the U.S. defense company Perennial Autonomy, which operates in Ukraine. The discussion was moderated by CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria.
Driscoll and Schmidt specifically highlighted the Ukrainian Delta system—a program that aggregates information from radars, sensors, and directly from military personnel, forming a comprehensive picture of combat operations. According to Driscoll’s assessment, in terms of capabilities, it surpasses everything currently in use by the U.S. Army.
In his view, as computing power increases and artificial intelligence advances, Ukraine will have a chance to outpace Russia both technologically and organizationally.
When the moderator pointed out the gap between the number of drones the U.S. will purchase this year and those Ukraine is capable of manufacturing, a remark came from the audience by former CIA Director David Petraeus —in his estimation, Ukraine’s production capacity could exceed even the forecasts that have been announced.
When the U.S. discovered a shortage of countermeasures against Iranian drones, the solution was not found among major defense contractors, but through Schmidt’s company—which quickly ramped up deliveries of interceptor drones and reconnaissance-strike aircraft, both types of which are already well known from their use in Ukraine.
Schmidt explained that the decision to cooperate was made in literally a single phone call, although the question remains open as to whether such a need could have been planned in advance.
In recent months, Washington appears to be moving away from the lessons learned from Ukraine’s military experience. The specialized unit that dealt specifically with this was disbanded in August, and several of its key supporters among the military leadership were either fired or forced to take early retirement this year.
Driscoll did not comment on these personnel decisions. He defended the general policy of supporting Ukraine, acknowledging that it had turned out to be more modest than Kyiv had expected.
Despite this, he said, relations between the countries were sustained by a sincere desire to see Ukraine succeed, even if things did not always go as expected. He himself decided that he could be of greater service by acting outside government structures rather than within them.