How Front-Line NATO Forces Train to Operate, Survive Ukraine War Threat

Finland and Poland — two front-line NATO allies that share borders with Russia — are experimenting with new ways of war using drones, military leaders told Business Insider, noting the radical changes unfolding in Ukraine.

Col. Matti Honko, the commanding officer of Finland’s Guard Jaeger Regiment, said that one of the main lessons from Ukraine is that there is increased transparency on the modern battlefield because of drones, satellites, and other means of surveillance.

Building up forces has become much more challenging. Large troop concentrations now have to be assembled on the move, Honko explained to BI last week on the sidelines of the Lively Sabre 25 exercise in southern Finland, where dispersal and mobility were key focal points for the training.

Soldiers are learning to listen for drones and what actions to take in response to reduce their exposure and vulnerability.

“Whenever you hear a drone, you cannot know if it’s your own or not. So you cannot be sure, because you cannot distinguish it from the sound,” Honko said. “It means that you start what I would call: immediate air-cover procedures. You find shelter, you try to disperse yourselves, you try to avoid being detected.”

He said this also includes counter-drone and other defensive measures that should be taken. He declined to go into specifics about the training scenarios but stressed that they are not yet fully integrated into everyday drills.

Cpl. Jimi Järnberg, a soldier of the 3rd Jaeger Company, a unit of the Finnish Army’s Pori Brigade, told BI during Lively Sabre that uncrewed systems are excellent surveillance tools that can be used to avoid exposing humans to harm when gathering intel, but the Ukraine war also highlights the danger of turning drones into bombs.

This type of weapon — a cheap, commercially available quadcopter drone that carries a small explosive payload, for example — is omnipresent on the battlefield in Ukraine. Both Kyiv and Moscow use them to deliver precision strikes on enemy troops, armored vehicles, and trenches.

Drones are widely recognized as the future of war. In Ukraine, they are proving deadlier than artillery, with reports from the front lines indicating they are responsible for roughly 80% of Russian front-line losses. As the world watches these developments, Finland is not alone in recognizing the significance of this threat and integrating new drone tactics into its training.

Brig. Gen. Michal Strzelecki, the commander of Poland’s 6th Airborne Brigade, which participated in Lively Sabre, told BI that his forces are also experimenting with this technology.

“We are in the early phase of that,” the general said, adding that “we are trying to follow everything that is happening behind the border, like what the Ukrainians are doing.”

But it’s difficult to keep up with the pace of innovation. Strzelecki said he wants to stay up to date, but new drone technology is emerging on the battlefield so fast that sometimes all he can do is observe the changes and wait for the right moment to act.

“The war in Ukraine shows the significant role of the lower-level” drones, he explained. “That’s something we are developing right now. We are training people how to operate them and waiting to implement the best version of that which will be the most suitable for our unit.”

He said Polish forces are training to use drones for different types of operations and were using them during Lively Sabre.

Polish Capt. Bartosz Januszewski said his forces are using the Israeli-made Orbiter reconnaissance drone, but the country is also starting to develop smaller systems like the quadcopter-style drones that are running rampant in Ukraine.

He told BI that Poland wants smaller drones for strike and reconassiance missions. And while the country recognized the need for drones before the Ukraine war, the conflict shows that this is the direction warfare is headed, sparking greater urgency in developing and fielding this tech.