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Ukrainian drone pilots turned a Swedish military exercise into a warning message for NATO about the speed at which countries may need to adapt to sabotage and drone threats, according to observations of the exercise by The Associated Press. The training took place on the island of Gotland and paired Western forces with Ukrainian drone experience in drills meant to reflect how operations could unfold before the alliance’s collective defense clause is triggered.
Rear Adm. Jonas Wikström, director of the exercise, said the scenario was designed around what could happen “tomorrow,” framing the war game as a test of alliance actions when sabotage knocks out critical services and creates conditions such as power outages and food shortages. Wikström described the premise as one in which NATO’s newest member, Sweden, faces a threat scenario tied to buildup along the alliance’s eastern border, with Ukraine participating in an advisory role on drone warfare.
Sweden’s defense chief Gen. Michael Claesson said the exercise also reflects European concerns about shifting dynamics inside NATO, including the role of the United States. Claesson said that because the United States is Europe’s most militarily capable ally, “any change in the American presence” affects overall security calculations, and he described how European observers interpret U.S. moves as signals that Americans may be leaving.
Claesson linked those concerns to announcements involving President Donald Trump, including Trump’s order to withdraw at least 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany and threats to remove more. Claesson also pointed to Trump’s broader criticism of allies and NATO over U.S. support during the Iran war, as well as the transfer of U.S. air defense systems and missiles from Europe toward the Middle East that raised concerns among European leaders about gaps in protection and possible delays to allied weapon orders.
In the training scenario, Ukrainian drone forces played the role of the aggressor, giving pilots a chance to demonstrate battlefield lessons and why they said their country’s experience would be valuable for NATO partners. A 24-year-old drone pilot who participated, using the call sign Tarik, told the AP that the Ukrainians “stopped the training three times” so troops could work out what they needed to improve, and the pilot said those stops reflected what they believed would be fatal in real conditions.
Another pilot who used the call sign Karat said Swedish troops showed potential but needed improvements in their drones and tactics, and he said commanders needed a deeper understanding of drone warfare. Karat described flying small first-person-view attack drones against Russian forces, sometimes with reconnaissance-drone support, and he said in other cases they were “working blindly” while operating at the front line.
Karat also told the AP that Western forces cannot fully understand those conditions without experiencing them. He said all Western forces need to “learn rapidly” about drone and counter-drone operations and described what he called the fastest route as listening to Ukrainian instruction during training.
Claesson said Russia’s proximity and capability make such learning urgent, and he placed the exercise’s focus on Gotland because of its strategic location in the Baltic Sea between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Sweden. Claesson said that controlling Gotland would give a player major influence over the central Baltic Sea, and he tied Russia’s interest to the region’s shipping role in the movement of oil and liquefied natural gas used to help fund its war in Ukraine.
Claesson said a “very reasonable scenario” is that Vladimir Putin could use Gotland to test NATO by attempting to take a thin sliver of alliance territory and probing how the coalition responds. He said the drill was therefore not just about conventional force readiness, but also about how the alliance might react to actions designed to trigger disruption before NATO’s collective response clause is activated.
Brig. Gen. Curtis King, who participated as part of the U.S. military involvement in the exercise, said that what Ukrainian forces had taught Western partners centered on survivability and avoiding detection. King said Western nations also need “deep” detection capabilities to spot drones from far away, and he described ongoing work toward integrating data-sharing across radar systems made by different companies in different countries, while saying the integration effort “has started” but that they were “not there yet.”
The exercise also unfolded against recent reports of drone incursions along Russia’s border with NATO, including drones sent off course by Russian jamming, the AP reported. In that context, the training sought to tighten practical coordination on counter-drone operations and on how quickly partners could align their systems and tactics when sabotage and drones create rapidly shifting threats, according to the exercise descriptions and comments provided by the officials and pilots involved.