Ukrainian drone operators overwhelmed US Army troops at a training exercise in Germany this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. The drill showed how far American forces still trail on the cheap front-line drones that dominate Russia's war on Ukraine, despite billions in Pentagon spending.
Drones now decide who moves and who dies along Ukraine's front, and Western armies are scrambling to master a way of fighting Kyiv rewrote under fire—some even copying its tools and procurement wholesale.
The dust gave them away
The exercise, Combined Resolve, ran in April and May. Around 3,500 US personnel, mostly from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, tried to seize a position defended by an opposing force reinforced with Ukrainian drone troops of the 412th Regiment of Unmanned Systems Forces, or Nemesis. The Ukrainian operators "eliminated" the attacking armored brigade, US officials briefed on the drill told the Journal.
Heavy vehicles kicked up dust that reconnaissance drones caught at once. Explosive-dropping and first-person-view drones, flown straight into their targets, did the rest. Kills came so fast that US vehicles had to be "re-spawned" as fresh units to keep the drill running, a US official told the Journal.
For first time, NATO ally built its entire military exercises around Ukrainian Azov Brigade lessons
Years of fighting Russia made the difference
Ukrainian crews have fought Russia for nearly four and a half years, repairing and adapting drones on the move, while US operators have never had to fix and arm them under fire, one person present told the Journal. Midway through, the Ukrainians switched sides and coached the Americans on attacking with drones. Eliot Cohen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said mastering drones is now vital for the US military, and that so far it has not.
Not everyone agrees on why. Some US officers say drones dominate only because the front barely moves, and that maneuver warfare would revive the tank, the Journal noted. Ukraine's former commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, argues drones have frozen maneuver for now, the reason the eastern front barely shifts.
Not the first Western army to lose
It keeps happening. Ukrainian drone teams beat British, Estonian, and other NATO troops, including Americans, at a Baltic exercise in May 2025, and outdid Swedish-led NATO forces this spring, the Journal reported. Back in 2023, a US officer training Ukrainians realized the lesson ran the other way.
What Washington is doing about it
The Trump administration, despite friction with Kyiv, has been reaching out to Ukraine, the Journal reported. It is testing Ukrainian drones it may buy, and used counter-drone tools proven in this war to defend its troops against Iran's drones. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in May that he was sending more Americans to study drone warfare in Ukraine. By Washington's own reckoning, no US maker can match Ukraine's combat-forged drones.
Read also
-
One tracked tank repairs, one marked artillery, one aimed bombs at civilians—all three got 15 years
-
Retired Valencia official came to Ukraine to repay debt from Franco’s time. Russia has held him since 2022, and now his Kherson apartment has burned
-
Ukraine has wrecked more than 100,000 Russian vehicles by hitting the roads, and this new drone is built exactly for that job
