Russia’s battlefield strategy in Ukraine has plateaued and, if nothing radically changes, Russia cannot expect any significant progress on the battlefield in 2026.
Ukraine has systematically removed humans from roles that don’t require human judgment, letting machines absorb the danger soldiers would otherwise face. What UGVs can and can’t do, and what lessons European institutions can draw from Ukraine’s experience.
A ceasefire is nowhere in sight. Putin sees no interest in ending his war. Even so, the EU should start preparing for the many post-war challenges Ukraine will face.
Lesia Bidochko is a Policy Fellow at EPIK as well as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Non-Resident Fellow at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). With an academic background in political science, she pursues a dual career in academia and think tanks.
Her professional experience includes serving as Deputy Head of the Detector Media Research Center, where she specialized in Russian foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), informational campaigns, social media monitoring, and strategic communications to disrupt propaganda networks. Drawing on her in-depth knowledge of Ukraine’s media landscape and how it has evolved before and during the full-scale war, Lesia offers nuanced insights into the country’s information environment. At the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center, she contributed to projects promoting Euro-Atlantic integration and bolstering democratic resilience amid hostilities in Ukraine. As a country expert for the Counter Extremism Project, she analyzed Russian disinformation and propaganda in Germany and their role in influencing (pro-)Russian foreign fighter recruitment.
Lesia has written numerous articles about the current political situation in Ukraine, Euro-Atlantic integration, negotiations during Russia’s war, and related issues of security and disinformation for, among other outlets, The National Interest, Internationale Politik, New Eastern Europe, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Ukraine-Analysen, the Wilson Center’s Focus Ukraine blog, and LibMod Center for Liberal Democracy’s webmagazine Ukraine verstehen. Her research also examines Ukrainian policies on temporarily occupied territories and sensitive domestic issues frequently instrumentalized by Russian propaganda, including Ukrainian far-right movements.
Bidochko holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees as well as a PhD in Political Science from the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and was an intern at the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa.
She is a contributor to the edited volume Crisis, Authoritarianism, and Emergency Powers: Towards a Siege Mentality (Routledge, 2027).
Areas of expertise: Ukrainian domestic politics; Ukrainian media and information landscape; strategic communications and policy on temporarily occupied territories; Russian FIMI; REMVE groups in Ukraine.
Languages: Ukrainian, English, Polish, German
ORCiD: 0000-0002-3952-4333
Ukraine has systematically removed humans from roles that don’t require human judgment, letting machines absorb the danger soldiers would otherwise face. What UGVs can and can’t do, and what lessons European institutions can draw from Ukraine’s experience.
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