Executive Summary
Ukrainian forces have run through five generations of drone tactics in eighteen months and rebuilt brigade-level electronic warfare in weeks, with detailed after-action material from units, the General Staff, and civilian analysts (DeepState UA, Tatarigami_UA, Mick Ryan's Ukraine Lessons project). NATO's Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre in Lisbon publishes on a multi-month cycle. The UK runs a Lessons Exploitation Centre at Warminster; the US Army has run the Center for Army Lessons Learned since 1985. Lithuania has the Žemaitis Military Academy doctrine cell and intelligence channels through AOTD, but no standing institution that converts Ukrainian combat data into Lithuanian field manuals on a defined timeline. This is an institutional gap, not a technical one. The recommended next step is a feasibility study by the Ministry of National Defence with the General Staff and the Žemaitis Academy, covering four questions: scope (drone, EW, fortification, medical, logistics), staffing (analysts, embedded liaison in Ukraine, Ukrainian-speaker capacity), source-handling (chain of custody on classified material, vetting against Russian penetration of returnee channels), and integration pathway. Whether the right form is a new center, an expanded Academy cell, or a JALLC-aligned national node is a Lithuanian determination.
The Problem
Russia is running its own systematic lessons-capture loop — General Staff publications, fast doctrinal updates on drone defence and counter-battery, and rapid fielding of new electronic-warfare gear. Ukraine publishes a high volume of combat material but in Ukrainian, on Telegram and Substack, and without Baltic-specific framing. The October to December 2025 balloon incursions over Vilnius and the persistent GPS jamming across the Baltic region show that adversary tactics now evolve faster than Lithuanian doctrine cycles can absorb them.
Lithuania currently learns from Ukraine through three channels: media reporting, individual officer contacts, and Operation Interflex training rotations in the United Kingdom (around 56,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained 2022-2025, with Lithuanian instructor participation). None of these channels has a defined lesson-to-doctrine timeline, an embedded analyst in Ukraine, or a vetting procedure against the risk that returnee-veteran sources have been compromised by Russian intelligence. The result is uneven capture: drone-warfare lessons land fast through informal networks; fortification, casualty-evacuation, and logistics lessons land slowly or not at all.
Without action: Critical lessons arrive late or never. Lithuanian units face balloon, drone, and EW threats with doctrine written before Ukraine demonstrated the counter.
Lithuanian Context
Lithuania has primary-source access most NATO partners lack: Lithuanian-speaking liaison officers, a Ukrainian veteran community resident in country, and Operation Interflex instructor rotations. The institutional question is how to convert that access into doctrine on a defined timeline without duplicating JALLC, the Žemaitis Academy doctrine cell, or AOTD intelligence functions. Chain of custody on classified Ukrainian material and vetting against Russian penetration of returnee channels are first-order design constraints, not afterthoughts.