"The Generals Thanked Us."

A Ukrainian military officer told how the AFU "defeated" NATO troops at an exercise.

Exercise "Hedgehog-2025", where Ukrainian pilots "defeated" a group of "enemy", demonstrated that the NATO military does not understand the danger from drones and how to respond to it during combat operations. This was stated by UAV platoon commander Nick from the 412th Nemesis Brigade for hromadske.

"The infantry reacted poorly to approaching assets. In some cases they tried to disperse, in some cases they did not. They didn't realize that this posed a threat. We told them it doesn't have to be that way. If there is a threat from the sky, you have to hide as quickly as possible and think about what cover to take so that you are not shot down from the sky, because if you are spotted, consider that in a short period of time you will be 200," he said.

According to the military officer, the pilots' task was to hit the vehicles. While flying toward the target, they could see 10 NATO military personnel standing nearby and not reacting to the drone in the sky. In that case, Nick would head to the commander and ask him to order the infantry to disperse, providing feedback immediately during the exercise.

"When they drove into the standoff, they didn't disperse the equipment. It was standing pretty close - 30-50 meters apart. So you fly into a square, and there you don't even have to search: you just see the cluster and start working out systematically," Nick noted.

The hromadske added that the commander was a senior group of pilots from Nemesis, and the Ukrainian pilots worked out the scenario together with the group, which was on the defensive. At the same time, another group was advancing and had to be stopped. After that the first group counterattacked. In general, the scenario lasted 5 days.

"We carried out defeat missions, logistical missions to mine roads, as well as quite a lot of humanitarian missions for infantry units of our partners - providing provisions, drones, even sleeping bags for the guys, because the training was close to reality. The units went to the range and no one brought them anything by cars," explained Nick.

It is noted that the Ukrainian pilots had to "destroy" the equipment. The partners asked to drop munitions moulages not on the target itself, but 10-15 meters away from it, so as not to injure anyone. In the end, the group in which the Ukrainian drone pilots were operating won the exercise.

"We weren't shocked - we were just pleasantly surprised that we didn't have a hard time practicing the whole thing. I realized that until you experience it, you don't understand. Especially the battlefield we have changes constantly and the ring just expands and expands," the fighter added.

When the combat game was over, the Ukrainian servicemen filled out an after action review form.

"They got interested and realized that it doesn't work like that anymore, that we need to change tactics. The generals on whose side we were working thanked us for coming from the front, spending our time and coming to help them," said the UAV platoon commander.

Nick noted that Estonia, where the exercise took place, is actively developing the drone component in the military and is showing great interest in UAVs. In particular, Estonian fighters used Maviks during the exercise.

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