Why this new Ukraine pact is a war-game changer for Australia

When Russia sent its first cruise missiles slamming into Kyiv and its mighty convoy roared toward the Ukrainian capital, the Western world expected that it would fall under Moscow’s control within three days. Some commentators described it as a David versus Goliath contest which David was sure to lose. They had forgotten the moral of the Old Testament story.

Yes, David was just a boy with a slingshot against a heavily armed warrior standing nine feet and nine inches tall. But with courage, good aim and a righteous cause, David killed the towering Philistine.

Ukraine not only has survived four-and-a-half years of Russian onslaught; it now has the advantage over its giant neighbour.

“Ukraine has had strategic momentum for the last six months,” the Australian retired major general Mick Ryan, a close student of the war, tells me. “Its strike campaign is hurting Russia, and it’s hurting Russia’s reputation.”

The extraordinary reversal of odds was demonstrated anew on the weekend; drones struck a Moscow oil refinery just 25 kilometres from the Kremlin. The refinery was left in flames. Ukraine is bringing the war right into Vladimir Putin’s capital.

To reach their target, Ukraine’s drones had to travel over 3000 kilometres and penetrate one of the most intensely protected air defence zones in the world. Moscow’s mayor said it was the biggest attack on his city yet, with some 450 Ukrainian drones intercepted.

The attack was timed to punctuate the third and final day of voting in Russia’s parliamentary election.

The election outcome in Putin’s garrison state was predictable. The only anti-war party on the ballot, Yabloko, was banned from running. The time and targeting of the next Ukrainian assault is not so predictable.

Russian losses are so heavy, with total casualties estimated at 1.5 million men so far, that Putin is speculated to be preparing to announce a general mobilisation of men. He’s denied any such mass call up as unnecessary “today”. Now that the parliamentary election are finished, is it a possibility tomorrow?

“There’s a chance he’ll do that,” says Ryan. “But Ukraine will say, ‘OK, we will just be killing more Russians each month’.” The estimated current attrition rate of Russians killed and wounded is about 30,000 men a month. “Until Putin changes strategy, we’ll probably just see Ukraine kill more Russians.”

Of course, Ukraine continues to suffer heavy losses of its own, with estimated total casualties of about half a million, and continuing at a much lower rate than its enemy’s.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies – a Washington-based research institute – estimates that, for most of the war, Russia was suffering two to three casualties, killed or wounded, for every one Ukrainian. But that this ratio rose to nearly eight Russians for every Ukrainian in the first half of 2026. Even that notorious pro-victor weather-vane, Donald Trump, has cooled his ardour for Putin and ceased his overt hostility to Volodymyr Zelensky. The US and Ukrainian presidents are to meet this week.

Australia rightly has supported Ukraine against Russia from the outset. This week, Anthony Albanese is scheduled to sign a new security agreement with Zelensky when they meet at the UN in New York on Wednesday, US-time.

It’s expected that Albanese will announce some extra assistance measures to help Ukraine in its struggle beyond the $1.7 billion worth of military and non-military aid already pledged.

But while the relationship so far has been all about Australia aiding Ukraine, it’s past time to ask ourselves a couple of questions. First, in a future war, is Australia likely to be confronting a peer nation? Or will it be an unequal fight, like David versus Goliath?

Australia’s strategists and defence planners are bracing for conflict with Beijing. Defence Minister Richard Marles points out that China is operating the biggest military build-up the world has seen since the run-up to World War II.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong says that Australia is locked in a “permanent contest” with China for influence over the Pacific island states and ocean to Australia’s north and east.

So if an Australian David is expecting to come under increasing threat from a Chinese Communist Party Goliath, which country could offer us the most useful and practical advice in how to prepare for asymmetric war?

“Australia does not need to learn these lessons through blood,” Ukraine’s ambassador to Canberra, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, told the Indian Ocean Defence Conference in Perth in May. “Ukraine is now able to work with Australia not as a supplicant, but as a genuine defence and security partner. Ukraine is ready, willing and able to exchange hard-won battlefield knowledge, operational expertise and defence technology expertise for the kinds of military support Ukraine still cannot generate alone.”

Australia’s Defence Force has been supplying military experts to train more than 2000 Ukrainian soldiers under the British-led Operation Kudu for two years now.

But Ukraine has learnt intense new lessons of modern warfare from its desperate daily survival. So that, as Mick Ryan points out: “We have far more to learn from the Ukrainians than they have to learn from us.”

He says that drone and counter-drone warfare are just the beginning. He cites the use of artificial intelligence; missile defence systems; how to protect critical infrastructure; how to manage police, fire and ambulance services in a war.

Ukraine has accumulated so much knowledge so quickly that it is now training NATO forces in drone and electronic warfare. Yet, to date, Australia has not had the benefit of Ukraine’s experience. Why not? Because, while Kyiv has signed enabling security agreements with 28 other of its allies and friends, including Japan, Britain and Canada, Australia has been slow. Canberra has been stalling on an agreement for a year for reasons unexplained.

So, for example, while Ukraine is allowing friendly countries’ AI companies to train on its deep battlefield database, an Australian company recently was knocked back because of the government’s leisurely work pace.

The agreement that Albanese and Zelensky are due to sign this week will open the way to all such co-operation, including, eventually, the ability for Australian troops to train on the Ukrainian battlefield.

Another lesson from David’s triumph over Goliath is that he went on to lead a force that expanded its remit to protect friendly tribes and local populations from violent bandits. He has much to teach us.

Peter Hartcher is political and international editor. He writes on federal politics each Saturday.