Battle Tested but Institutionally Excluded: the Role of Ukraine in the EU’s Collective Drone Security | Atlas Institute for International Affairs
AI Analysis
A recent NATO exercise ('Hedgehog') revealed a significant doctrinal and technological gap in counter-UAS capabilities, with a small Ukrainian team decisively defeating a much larger NATO force. Ukraine has rapidly innovated in battlefield management systems like DELTA, integrating drones, satellite imagery, and AI, while Russia has established an elite drone force ('Rubicon'). The exercise highlights the need for urgent adaptation to modern drone warfare tactics within NATO and the EU.
Key Takeaways
- During Exercise Hedgehog (May 2025), 10 Ukrainian soldiers defeated a NATO force of 16,000, destroying 17 armored vehicles and executing 30 strikes.
- NATO forces demonstrated outdated tactics, failing to account for pervasive drone surveillance and operating as if air superiority was guaranteed.
- Ukraine's DELTA system integrates drone reconnaissance, satellite imagery, and AI for a real-time kill chain, surpassing the US's still-undeployed CJADC2 system.
- Russia has established 'Rubicon', an elite drone warfare unit, indicating a parallel focus on drone capabilities.
- Despite the clear demonstration of NATO's vulnerabilities, one NATO official framed the exercise as a success, suggesting a potential disconnect between perceived and actual readiness.
Why It Matters
This exercise underscores the critical need for NATO and EU forces to rapidly modernize their doctrines and invest in counter-UAS technologies and integrated battlefield management systems. The Ukrainian experience demonstrates the asymmetric threat posed by even small, well-equipped drone units and the potential for significant battlefield disruption. Ignoring these lessons could lead to substantial vulnerabilities in future conflicts.
Battle Tested but Institutionally Excluded: the Role of Ukraine in the EU’s Collective Drone Security | Atlas Institute for International Affairs
April 27, 2026
Risk Analysis & Insights, Titan
Battle Tested but Institutionally Excluded: the Role of Ukraine in the EU’s Collective Drone Security
The EU Needs Institutional Urgency and Ukraine’s Involvement to Close the Technological Gap with Russia
In May 2025, NATO conducted a major military exercise called the Hedgehog, in which Ukrainian drone experts participated alongside allied forces (WSJ, 2026). Over 16,000 troops from 12 NATO countries were stationed in Estonia. Head of the Estonian Defence Forces’ unmanned systems programme Lt. Col. Arbo Probal stated the exercise’s aim was to “create friction, stress for units and cognitive overload as soon as possible”. What followed became a doctrinal exposure.
NATO forces were caught off guard, operating under outdated doctrines designed for a pre-drone battlefield, when movement and command structures assumed total aerial surveillance did not exist. They tried to hide under tree lines, park armoured vehicles in visible positions, build command stations in exposed terrain (leading to their being openly visible from kilometres away) and showed no modern adaptations that Ukrainian soldiers consider routine. On the other side of the mock battlefield were 10 Ukrainian soldiers, including personnel borrowed from the front lines, who destroyed 17 armoured vehicles and landed 30 strikes on other targets.
Aivar Hanniotti, an ex-Estonian Defence League unmanned aerial systems coordinator who led the team of adversaries during the exercise, said the results were “horrible,” and that a unit of about 100 personnel was “able to eliminate two battalions in a day.” The NATO side, Hanniotti noted, “didn’t even get our drone teams.” However, when asked about the exercise, Probal responded “mission accomplished,” suggesting the exercise had done its job. The gap is impossible to ignore.
DELTA and Rubicon: Innovation on Both Sides
DELTA is a Ukrainian battlefield management system that integrates drone reconnaissance, satellite imagery and AI analysis into a kill chain available at all times (Ukrainska Pravda, 2025). Originating as a highly efficient digital map for situational awareness deployed in August 2024, it grew into a complex ecosystem of software applications and is now utilised on all levels of military decision making (CSIS, 2024). Through advance planning DELTA has been integral in the success of many Ukrainian operations launched against Russia. Worldwide, this technology had been in the making for decades: for instance the US spent billions attempting to build something similar, although their Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control system remains undeployed at scale. Around the same time that DELTA was launched, Moscow created its elite drone force The Centre for Advanced Unmanned Technologies known as ‘Rubicon’ (CNN,