Creative Destruction Adoption Capacity in AI-Driven Warfare: The Case of the Ukraine-Russia War

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in military technology has had a significant impact on warfare. Russia’s deployment of AI systems against Ukraine during its full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022, and Ukraine’s use of AI tools in its defence constitute important case studies for examining military innovation in a conflict zone. This study addresses the following research question: How have Ukraine and Russia integrated AI systems into their military capabilities, and to what extent has organizational capacity for adoption—rather than total military investment—determined the operational effectiveness of these systems in the 2022–2026 conflict? Drawing on a content analysis of official documents, policy strategies, and secondary sources, this qualitative study examines the institutional trajectory of AI integration in both states from a comparative perspective. Based on Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction and Horowitz’s adoption capacity framework, the study posits that Ukraine’s decentralized, coalition-based innovation model has consistently outperformed Russia’s state-centred AI strategy. This was achieved not by matching Russia’s total military capacity, but by leveraging organizational agility as a force multiplier. The findings suggest that, in AI-enabled conflicts, organizational architecture is a more reliable predictor of operational effectiveness than traditional measures of military power.