Time Domain: A New Dimension of the Battlefield, Revealed by the Experience of the Russo-Ukrainian War

By Oleksiy Honcharuk

Existing military doctrines focus far more on control over space than on advantage in time. This gap is precisely the problem that the concept of Time Domain addresses

The Russo-Ukrainian War has revealed a new, critical dimension of warfare centred on the competition of time rather than space – in particular, speed of adaptation and innovation cycles are decisive for battlefield success. In response, in January 2024 Ukraine established a dedicated Unmanned Systems Force branch despite initial opposition – now accounting for almost a third of enemy losses.

This Strategic Update from Oleksiy Honcharuk – Prime Minister of Ukraine 2019-2020 and Co-founder & Chairman of Uforce – explores how Ukraine’s tactical superiority depends on its capacity to evolve and sustain advantages in the Time Domain – a concept that NATO Allies, it argues, should be integrating into their military planning alongside maintaining the technological edge.

Time Domain adds a different scale: how much time a given decision buys relative to the adversary finding a response

This paper will be published as part of the Democratic Resilience in a New Age of War programme

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Meet the Author:

Oleksiy Honcharuk served as Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2019 to 2020, becoming the youngest head of government in the country's history. He advised the first Commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces and leads the Supervisory Board of the NGO Aerorozvidka - the community that stood at the origins of the legendary Delta battlefield management system.

A Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at FSI, Stanford University, a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), his work focuses on the intersection of defence policy and emerging military technologies.

Since 2025, Honcharuk has been co-founder and Chairman of the Board of UFORCE — a British-Ukrainian defence tech unicorn integrating next-generation military capabilities through battlefield-proven autonomous systems."