Sea drones under Ukrainian command: NATO loses all five scenarios in naval exercise off Portugal

Ukrainian drone specialists are once again attracting attention at NATO manoeuvres – this time with sea drones. At the "Hedgehog 2025" exercise in Estonia, a ten-strong Ukrainian drone team had already badly outmanoeuvred two NATO battalions. It has now emerged that Alliance forces also lost to Ukrainian-led units in a NATO naval exercise last year.

According to a report by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a multinational "red" naval team under Ukrainian command, with American, British and Spanish participation, operated off the Portuguese coast at "REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger 2025". Across several scenarios it exposed weaknesses in NATO naval forces and, according to the report, won all five exercise situations.

Sea drones mark NATO frigate

Among the assets used were Ukrainian Magura V7 sea drones. These unmanned fast boats can ram enemy ships or attack them with weapons. Ukraine has been using such systems successfully in the Black Sea since the start of the Russian war of aggression in 2022.

The exercise simulated, among other things, attacks on ports and convoys and their defence. A ship counted as "hit" as soon as a drone had targeted it first and documented this. In one of the scenarios, the "red" team even marked a NATO frigate several times; according to the report, the ship would probably have been lost in real combat.

A NATO spokesperson confirmed the exercise to the FAZ. He spoke of a "historic milestone" because the Ukrainian Navy had coordinated the opposing forces within a NATO exercise for the first time. The training had also shown that unmanned systems pose a serious threat to NATO naval forces, for which many navies are so far inadequately prepared. The Alliance had drawn valuable lessons from Ukraine's frontline experience, he said.

NATO had experienced something similar last autumn in an exercise on land: at "Hedgehog" in Estonia, around ten Ukrainian drone specialists put two NATO battalions out of action. Reportedly, Brussels was "shocked" at the time by how poorly allied troops were prepared for a modern drone war of the kind currently being fought in Ukraine.