Torsten Dahlberg retweetledi
After Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s speech in Prague, many of his recent statements can be summed up into one central idea: he is no longer speaking only about Ukraine’s war, but about the birth of an entirely new world.
Zaluzhnyi argues that the old global security system is effectively dead. The principles that once seemed untouchable — international law, deterrence, security guarantees, and the inviolability of borders — have proven weak against a new generation of technological warfare. Ukraine, he says, has become the first country forced to experience this brutal transformation in real time.
According to him, war no longer has a clear frontline. Today, the entire territory of a country becomes a battlefield. Civilian infrastructure, energy systems, the economy, logistics, and even the psychological condition of society are now just as much a part of war as trenches or artillery.
Distance no longer guarantees safety. Cheap drones, missiles, digital technologies, and the mass accessibility of advanced weapons have fundamentally changed the nature of conflict. Capabilities that once belonged only to major powers are now spreading far more widely.
Zaluzhnyi stresses that much of the world still thinks in terms of past wars, while modern warfare has already changed completely. In the 20th century, victory depended on massive armies and manpower at the frontline. Today, the decisive factors are technology, analytics, automation, drones, communications, and the speed of adaptation.
He notes that the traditional frontline is gradually becoming “empty,” while the real struggle moves deeper — into command systems, production, logistics, information warfare, and economic resilience.
He also argues that Ukraine itself can no longer rely on outdated models of mobilization and state organization. Zaluzhnyi speaks about the need for a “smart mobilization” system — one that preserves human lives, strengthens the military technologically, and honestly explains the realities of war to society.
Without deep reforms in the army, military training, and the defense industry, he warns, surviving a long war will be impossible.
His recent speeches increasingly sound not only like warnings for Ukraine, but for Europe as well. According to Zaluzhnyi, Europe lived for too long under the illusion of permanent stability and security. Building a new security system, he says, will take years and will be painful, because democratic societies struggle to accept rapid change and unpopular decisions.
Yet the new reality has already arrived, and there is no hiding from it.
What stands out in Zaluzhnyi’s words is the absence of emotional rhetoric or political theatrics. Instead, there is a cold recognition that the world has entered a new era — an era of technological warfare, exhaustion, and constant adaptation.
And in this new era, survival will belong not to those who were strongest under the old rules, but to those who learn to adapt the fastest.
English
