Oxana Chorna/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
- Warsaw has signed a new agreement that will see Ukraine training Polish troops to defend their skies.
- For much of the war, NATO has been training Ukraine on alliance warfighting tactics.
- The agreement is a new moment of recognition of Ukraine’s experience and expertise in fighting Russia.
When Russian tank columns came thundering over Ukraine’s borders in February 2022, much of the world braced for the country’s immediate collapse.
Kyiv had been taking steps to bring its combat forces up to NATO standards, but the invasion left that work unfinished. International media ran bleak photos of civilians and teenagers training with cardboard Kalashnikov rifles.
Western officials, aware of Moscow’s plan to take the country in three days, feared Kyiv’s government would not last the week. US politicians were already talking of arming an insurgency.
The collapse never came.
Three years later, Ukraine has not only survived — it is now training NATO soldiers. On Thursday, Poland signed a new mutual exchange agreement that will see its troops learn from Kyiv’s forces how to fight a new kind of war: a drone war.
Though there have been efforts within NATO to draw lessons from the Ukraine war and even learn from Ukrainian troops, the memorandum, signed by the Polish and Ukrainian defense ministers, marks a shift.
There’s a clear recognition of the experience Ukraine has in some newer ways of war. “Ukraine is currently the most experienced country in the world in the sphere of Western influence, on our side of the force, in terms of production capabilities, but also in the use of this equipment,” said Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.
NATO leaders have long acknowledged that there is much Western forces can learn from Ukraine’s tactics, force structure, and sustainable way of war. The alliance has a joint facility in Poland that specializes in gleaning lessons from how Ukraine is fighting.
And with the new memorandum, Ukraine will be directly training Polish soldiers in elements of drone warfare, which has been a predominant aspect of Russia’s war against its neighbor.
“We are talking about training engineers and training soldiers who will withstand and defend the air domain,” Ukrainian defense minister Denys Shmyhal said.
The signing, which also covers closer cooperation on drone-making and robotics, comes about a week after Poland said it dealt with more than a dozen Russian drones illegally breaching its borders.
When Warsaw sounded the alarm, NATO scrambled F-35s, F-16s, and other aircraft to confront the uncrewed platforms that had breached its airspace. Responding aircraft shot down multiple drones.
When the shooting subsided, the news rippled through Ukraine. Local bloggers reported, incredulously, that NATO had used million-dollar AIM-120 missiles to fight Gerberas: Russian decoy drones that are intended as cannon fodder.
It is unclear if that was the case, but regardless, Ukraine has been developing more cost-effective solutions.
TETIANA DZHAFAROVA/AFP via Getty Images
Ukraine is forced to respond daily to Gerbera drones designed to mimic the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 and Russian variants. These aircraft often fly in tandem with ballistic missiles and actual versions of the loitering munition, a kind of one-way attack drone used in nightly bombardments.
Moscow launches hundreds of attack drones at a time, aiming to overwhelm and exhaust conventional defenses to strike railways, power grids, cities, and other infrastructure.
To fight Shaheds and Gerberas sustainably, and leave its expensive surface-to-air missiles for higher-end threats like Russian missiles, Kyiv deploys a ragtag raft of cheaper measures, including electronic warfare and new drones that fly so quickly they can act as interceptors. The new interceptor drones are emerging as a key capability with tremendous potential in the battle against Russian attacks.
One of Kyiv’s enduring tactics is to deploy truck crews with machine guns and rifles who can fire up into the sky and hopefully destroy incoming Shaheds, though sometimes, they’re out of reach. Another is to send troops in helicopters and propeller planes to chase drones and shoot them with small arms.
“Only with a multi-system structure can we combat a massive drone attack,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on September 11. That week, the Ukrainian leader pushed hard on the cost-heavy defense of Poland’s skies, chiding NATO’s style. Ukraine, he said, could show them a better way to fight Russia.
“Ukraine is ready to share its experience and expand production,” Zelenskyy said. It looks like the alliance is finally ready to take it up on that offer.
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