Ukrainian drone operators bring frontline lessons to Sweden's largest military exercise

Ukrainian drone operators with frontline experience are using wartime tactics to test Nato troops during a major exercise in Sweden.

Exercise Aurora is an annual Swedish-led exercise that this year involves more than 18,000 troops from 13 countries.

Working with Swedish Army drone operators, the Ukrainian personnel are using reconnaissance and attack drones to test how tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and dismounted troops cope with threats from above.

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Some troops are deliberately being fielded without anti-drone technology to assess the impact of drone warfare on armoured and infantry units.

Footage from the exercise shows Ukrainian and Swedish drone operators preparing FPV drones and attaching training bombs, while Swedish CV90 infantry fighting vehicles move through the training area before troops spot a drone overhead and open fire during a simulated battle.

Swedish Leopard 2 tanks and CV90 infantry fighting vehicles are also training alongside Royal Netherlands Army Apache attack helicopters.

Sweden officially joined Nato in March 2024, becoming its 32nd member. 

"Living in this kind of world we are today, I feel very, very safe and great that Finland and Sweden joined Nato two years ago," said Admiral Ewa Skoog Haslum, Chief of Joint Operations, Swedish Armed Forces. 

"I think that will serve us very very well," she added.

The admiral also said Sweden was now moving faster towards fully interoperable forces.

"I think the speed, the pace has really increased," she said. "There are differences that we are not sitting, viewing the game, we are actually part of it."

A Swedish mechanised infantry battalion will also travel to Latvia during the exercise to train alongside Nato's multinational brigade.

For Sweden, Exercise Aurora 26 is a test of how the country would defend its own territory while supporting the wider alliance.

For Nato troops, the Ukrainian drone teams bring an immediate lesson from the battlefield on how armoured vehicles and infantry now have to fight under constant threat from the air.