A Wall Street Journal report reveals that during a large-scale NATO drill in Estonia, a small Ukrainian drone team exposed major gaps in alliance readiness for modern warfare.
According to the report, the incident occurred during NATO’s Exercise Hedgehog 2025 (SIIL 2025), one of the alliance’s largest defensive drills, held in Estonia in May 2025 and involving more than 16,000 troops from 12 countries. The exercise focused on multi-domain warfare, including countering drone threats.
NATO invited a Ukrainian drone unit to participate. During a simulated complex battlefield scenario, large Estonian and British units conducted a coordinated assault. Within a short time, however, just 10 Ukrainian drone operators reportedly identified the advancing forces, which were moving without sufficient concealment.
Within hours, the Ukrainian team “struck” 17 armored vehicles and 30 additional targets in the simulation, effectively neutralizing both units. One stunned commander reportedly summed up the situation in blunt terms: “We are .”
