The Reality of NATO Training Exercises on Modern Battlefields

A Frontline Medic's Wake-Up Call

When U.S. frontline medic Rebekah Maciorowski left Denver, Colorado in March 2022 to volunteer in Ukraine, she carried with her over a decade of paramedic experience and the hope that her skills could make a difference. More than three years later, after evacuating over a thousand wounded soldiers and witnessing the brutal realities of drone-dominated warfare firsthand, she has a stark message for Western military leaders: NATO is not prepared for a direct conflict with Russia.

Maciorowski's assessment, shaped by over 40 months on Ukraine's eastern front, reveals a dangerous disconnect between NATO's training doctrine and the realities of twenty-first century warfare. Speaking from her medical evacuation headquarters near Kramatorsk, she delivered an unsettling verdict when asked about the alliance's readiness. "No. No, I'm honestly a little bit terrified," she told journalists, adding that while NATO officials project confidence in their preparedness, the battlefield conditions in Ukraine represent something fundamentally different from anything the alliance has trained for.

The Drone Revolution NATO Hasn't Fully Grasped

The transformation of modern warfare sits in the palm of every soldier's hand and hovers constantly overhead. Commercial drones, modified FPV racing quadcopters, and sophisticated loitering munitions have created what military analysts call a "transparent battlefield" where concealment has become nearly impossible. A Russian Lancet drone can loiter over strategic positions for hours, making any concentration of forces a potential death sentence.

Maciorowski experienced this reality directly when she underwent training with NATO forces over the past year. Her assessment was blunt: the training felt relevant to Afghanistan and Iraq, not Ukraine. "When I went to train with NATO, the factor of drones was not really filtered in. It was very much the tactics that were learned in the previous war," she explained. "And these tactics now do not apply because you're not making a linear assault. Everything has changed with drones."

This gap between training and reality has become a recurring theme among Ukrainian soldiers participating in NATO exercises across Europe. Recent reports from training grounds in Poland and the Czech Republic reveal instructors still working from textbooks written for counterinsurgency operations where drone threats were minimal. During one exercise, Czech paratroopers asked Ukrainian troops to "remove the Mavics" after the reconnaissance drones detected their assault groups too quickly. The Ukrainian response was unequivocal: without drones, this isn't training for modern war—it's historical reenactment.

Medical Realities That Shatter NATO Doctrine

Perhaps nowhere is the gulf between NATO training and battlefield reality more pronounced than in combat medicine. The alliance's doctrine relies on the "golden hour" principle—the idea that wounded soldiers should reach proper medical care within 60 minutes of injury. In Afghanistan, British forces achieved a remarkable 99.2 percent survival rate for casualties evacuated to Camp Bastion's hospital within that timeframe.

On Ukraine's eastern front, that doctrine has become dangerously obsolete. "In any war with Russia, it could be days or weeks before a severely wounded NATO soldier could be evacuated," military analysts now warn. Maciorowski's teams have abandoned armored ambulances—which have become "death traps" under constant drone surveillance—in favor of quad bikes that can race between forests and dugouts. Even then, her evacuation teams take heavy losses.

The wounds themselves tell a story of warfare's evolution. "The wounds, the injuries, are catastrophic," Maciorowski explains. "And they're multiplying because the radius of impact for a drone that drops a grenade or explosive device is massive. So you can have an entire group that's taken out, all of them injured in one drop." Her teams now train every soldier to provide emergency care, administer intravenous fluids, and treat catastrophic injuries in isolation—skills that may be needed for hours or days before professional medical help arrives.

"I don't think anyone can be prepared for a conflict like this. And what's concerning to me is, while they're offering training [in Europe for Ukrainians], I think it would do them well to also take some information and training from the Ukrainians." — Rebekah Maciorowski, U.S. Combat Medic in Ukraine

NATO's Training Exercises: Preparing for Yesterday's War?

Throughout 2025, NATO has conducted its most ambitious series of military exercises since the Cold War's end. Exercise Griffin Lightning deployed 26,000 multinational troops across Poland and the Baltic states. The massive Steadfast Defender exercise involved 90,000 personnel. Operation Neptune Strike brought together forces from ten allied nations in the Mediterranean. These drills demonstrate significant investment in readiness and deterrence along NATO's eastern flank.

Yet according to frontline veterans like Maciorowski and British volunteer soldier Arnold, these exercises may be answering the wrong questions. Arnold, who has fought in Ukraine since 2022, argues that NATO's emphasis on combined arms maneuver and concentration of forces runs counter to survival tactics learned under constant drone surveillance. "Russia is adapting fast. It is a colossal threat and very underestimated in Europe," he warned.

Some NATO commanders are beginning to acknowledge the gap. Captain Zachary Donner, a U.S. officer participating in Griffin Lightning, told reporters that American forces are "keeping a pulse on the conflict" and "taking lessons learnt from over in Ukraine." However, the integration of these lessons into broader NATO doctrine appears uneven. While Operation Interflex has trained 61,000 Ukrainian soldiers in Europe, with 91 percent reporting increased confidence in their survivability, Ukrainian veterans argue the knowledge transfer needs to flow both directions.

The Strategic Implications for Alliance Readiness

The lessons emerging from Ukraine's battlefields carry profound implications for NATO's deterrence posture. General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, has publicly stated that the alliance must be prepared to fight concurrent conflicts with Russia and China by 2027. Yet the technological and tactical revolutions witnessed in Ukraine suggest that conventional force concentrations may no longer provide the advantage they once did.

Ukraine has emerged as what military analysts call a "drone superpower," producing 200,000 FPV drones monthly by early 2025. These relatively inexpensive weapons have inflicted up to 80 percent of Russian battlefield casualties and demonstrated the capacity to destroy equipment worth millions of dollars. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged at a recent summit that "the only expert right now in the world when it comes to anti-drone capacities is Ukraine, because they are fighting the Russian drones almost every day."

This recognition has prompted some NATO members to reverse the traditional training relationship. Poland has established the Jomsborg drone training center where Ukrainian instructors help design courses. Britain launched Project OCTOPUS to mass-produce Ukrainian interceptor drones. Romania announced plans for joint drone production facilities. These initiatives represent a fundamental shift: NATO learning from Ukraine rather than the other way around.

Russia's Zapad 2025: A Different Kind of Preparation

While NATO conducts large-scale exercises emphasizing mobility and combined arms, Russia's September 2025 Zapad exercises revealed a different approach. Though scaled down compared to previous iterations—with official figures citing around 13,000 troops versus the estimated 200,000 who participated in 2021—the exercises demonstrated focused attention on what analysts call "high-leverage capabilities."

Long-range precision fires, integrated air and missile defense, and electronic warfare took center stage, reflecting the frictions and vulnerabilities exposed by the Ukraine conflict. Western analysts noted that the reduced scale wasn't necessarily a sign of weakness but rather a rational adaptation to the immense material costs of the ongoing war. The exercises also provided crucial signals about Russian doctrine evolution—prioritizing capabilities proven effective in Ukraine over mass mobilization displays.

The Human Cost of Unpreparedness

For Maciorowski, these strategic considerations translate into visceral human reality. She has witnessed friends killed, watched soldiers die from faulty tourniquets in donated medical kits, and experienced Russian propaganda falsely claiming her death on multiple occasions. Her commitment remains unwavering—"I can't leave them now, that's my family," she says of the Ukrainian soldiers she serves—but her message to Western militaries grows more urgent.

The ammunition shortages that plagued Ukrainian forces through 2024 have eased somewhat, but Maciorowski observed how those delays translated directly into lost territory and lives. When Avdiivka fell to Russian forces in February 2024, she had been helping evacuate wounded from the strategic city. "By the end, the battle for Avdiivka became more of a numbers game," she recalled. "Russia had way more resources, way more artillery, way more drones, way more troops."

That numerical and material disparity would be magnified exponentially in any direct NATO-Russia conflict. The alliance's combined forces would face an adversary that has spent three years adapting doctrine, tactics, and technology to warfare's new realities. Meanwhile, significant portions of NATO forces continue training with scenarios where linear assaults remain viable and evacuation within the golden hour is assumed.

Bridging the Gap: Ukraine as NATO's Unexpected Professor

The establishment of the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC) in Bydgoszcz, Poland represents formal recognition that Ukraine possesses combat experience the alliance desperately needs to study. Staffed by both NATO and Ukrainian personnel, the center has conducted projects focused on air defense, critical infrastructure protection, and resilience since opening in February 2025.

Yet as Ukrainian troops participate in training exercises across NATO countries, they continue encountering outdated scenarios. Marines who survived the brutal fighting in Krynky express bewilderment at exercises where armored personnel carriers "calmly cross bridges" or swim across rivers—movements that would draw immediate drone strikes in actual combat. When instructors demonstrate navigation using paper maps, soldiers accustomed to digital battlefield management systems on tablets struggle to see the relevance.

Arnold, the British volunteer, has proposed a more radical solution: "We should have Ukrainians training British officers at Sandhurst. A resident Ukrainian platoon, rotating regularly, could give NATO the real download on what's happening on the frontlines." It's a suggestion that would have seemed absurd before 2022 but now carries the weight of hard-won battlefield wisdom.

The Window for Adaptation Is Closing

NATO's eastern flank members—Poland, the Baltic states, Finland—understand the urgency viscerally. They share borders with an adversary actively prosecuting the largest land war in Europe since 1945. Their governments have invested heavily in defense modernization and participate eagerly in alliance exercises. Yet even these frontline states grapple with procurement systems designed for conventional threats and force structures optimized for scenarios that may no longer apply.

The technology gap is narrowing, but not in NATO's favor. Russia now produces its own drone swarms and has demonstrated sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities. The innovation cycle has compressed dramatically—the window between new weapon systems appearing and effective countermeasures being developed now sometimes measures in weeks rather than years. Ukraine's rapid battlefield adaptation has proven critical to its survival, but that same adaptability may not characterize larger, more bureaucratic NATO militaries.

General Grynkewich maintains that NATO is ready to fight today if necessary and that readiness serves as the best deterrent. This confidence, however, must be measured against the assessment of those who have experienced the war's realities firsthand. When a combat medic with three years of frontline experience in Ukraine expresses terror at the thought of NATO facing Russia directly, that perspective deserves serious consideration.

Beyond Training: Systemic Challenges

The training gap reflects deeper structural issues. Western defense procurement operates on timelines measured in years or decades, while Ukraine's wartime innovation cycle measures in weeks. The alliance's emphasis on expensive, technologically sophisticated systems contrasts with Ukraine's successful deployment of thousands of relatively cheap commercial drones modified for military purposes.

Maciorowski has witnessed these disparities directly in the medical supplies reaching the front. Fake tourniquets that break under pressure, first aid kits that fail quality control, equipment shipments destroyed by Russian strikes before distribution—these practical failures compound the tactical and strategic challenges NATO would face in any extended conflict with Russia.

The alliance's Article 5 collective defense guarantee provides members confidence to send equipment to Ukraine without compromising their own security. Yet that same guarantee may create complacency about what actual combat against a peer adversary would entail. The psychological shock of facing sustained drone attacks, artillery barrages, and electronic warfare at scales not experienced since World War II could prove devastating to forces trained primarily for counterinsurgency or peacekeeping operations.

The Path Forward: Learning While There's Still Time

Several NATO members are beginning to integrate Ukrainian lessons more aggressively. Poland's Jomsborg training center, where Ukrainian instructors help design drone warfare curricula, represents one model. The United Kingdom's investment in Ukrainian interceptor drone production demonstrates willingness to adopt proven technologies. Denmark's formal recognition of Ukraine as the world's leading drone warfare expert signals important mindset shifts at the political level.

These initiatives need expansion and acceleration. Every month that NATO forces train without fully incorporating drone warfare realities is a month that the readiness gap widens. The alliance's conventional advantages in technology, resources, and industrial capacity mean little if the basic tactical assumptions underlying their employment no longer hold.

For Maciorowski, the solution starts with humility and reciprocal learning. NATO's training infrastructure, logistical capabilities, and professional military education systems remain world-class. But those systems must be updated with the knowledge purchased through Ukrainian blood and sacrifice on battlefields where the future of warfare is being written in real time.

"I would encourage representatives to reach out to me," Maciorowski told journalists, expressing willingness to brief American congressional leaders directly about frontline realities. "I have open Twitter, they can slide right into those DMs. I would love to correspond directly with any American Congresspeople interested in the real situation." It's an offer that reflects both frustration at the disconnect between policy and reality and determination to bridge that gap before it's too late.

Conclusion: The Stakes of Preparedness

NATO's military exercises in 2025 have demonstrated impressive organizational capability, rapid deployment capacity, and alliance solidarity. Tens of thousands of troops have trained together across multiple domains and geographic areas. These exercises serve crucial political and military purposes, reassuring eastern flank allies and signaling resolve to potential adversaries.

Yet as Rebekah Maciorowski's testimony makes clear, readiness measured by traditional metrics may not translate to preparedness for the kind of warfare Ukraine has been fighting since 2022. The transparent battlefield created by ubiquitous drones, the catastrophic casualty patterns from precision strikes, the impossibility of rapid medical evacuation under constant surveillance—these realities demand fundamental rethinking of doctrine, not merely tactical adjustments.

The window for that rethinking remains open, but it won't stay open indefinitely. Russia continues adapting its forces based on Ukrainian battlefield experience. China observes both the war and NATO's response with keen strategic interest. The alliance's technological and industrial advantages provide time and opportunity to close the readiness gap, but only if that time is used wisely.

Three years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the lessons are clear for those willing to see them. The question facing NATO is whether it will learn those lessons before they must be relearned in blood on the alliance's own territory. For soldiers like Maciorowski and Arnold, who have experienced the future of warfare firsthand, the answer to that question carries existential weight. Their voices, born of experience in hell, deserve not just hearing but heeding.

As NATO continues its training exercises and strategic planning, the alliance faces a choice: adapt to the warfare of tomorrow based on the harsh lessons of today, or risk facing Russia's evolved military with doctrines designed for yesterday's conflicts. The stakes, as Maciorowski's "terror" suggests, could not be higher.