The program will focus on the use of drones and modern command and control technologies, a Bundeswehr spokesperson has told the DPA news agency
Ukrainian service members will train German troops in drone warfare as well as the use of modern command and control technologies as part of a new program, several German media outlets have reported.
The Ukraine conflict has seen the mass deployment of strike and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by both Ukrainian and Russian forces. Their use has fundamentally changed battlefield dynamics, rendering many traditional approaches obsolete.
On Monday, the German Press Agency (dpa) quoted an unnamed Bundeswehr spokesperson as saying that a training program involving Ukrainian instructors was agreed upon by the two countries’ militaries last Friday.
“The plan is to incorporate the experience of Ukrainian soldiers into training,” the official was quoted as saying, declining to go into more detail. According to Der Spiegel, Berlin is putting a premium on “essential capabilities” presumably developed by the Ukrainian military since 2022, particularly in the use and defense against drones.
“No one in NATO currently has more combat experience than Ukraine, and we must utilize that,” unnamed German officers said, as quoted by the publication.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that during the Hedgehog 2025 drills in Estonia last May, a team of around ten Ukrainian drone operators embedded within a 100-strong ‘adversary unit’ headed by Estonians thwarted a mechanized attack by several thousand NATO troops, including a British brigade and an Estonian division. Within a single day of war games, the Ukrainians reportedly managed to “eliminate two battalions” of NATO troops, mock-destroying 17 armored vehicles and conducting 30 “strikes” on other targets, with the opposing team failing to take out the UAV operators.
According to the WSJ, participants described the results of the exercise as “horrible” for NATO forces, with one bloc commander reportedly concluding, “We are f***ed.”
On the battlefield in the Ukraine conflict, the Russian military has been steadily on the offensive, gaining ground and seizing several key localities along the entire front line over the past year. Late last year, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov estimated that Kiev’s forces had lost nearly 500,000 service members in 2025 alone.
