A British brigade was « destroyed » by Ukrainian forces during a major NATO wargame held in Estonia it has been revealed. The exercise, named Hedgehog 2025, involved more than 16,000 troops from 12 NATO nations. According to the head of Estonia’s unmanned systems unit, the drills simulated a battlefield with an array of different drones. During one specific scenario, a battle group composed of thousands of personnel – including a British brigade and an Estonian division – was defeated by Ukrainian forces. Military officials described the outcome as a « horrible » result for NATO.
In the battlefield scenario, tanks and troops could advance, mimicking the early stages of the war in Ukraine, rather than the largely frozen front lines along which troops are currently fighting. One participant, who played the enemy, told the Wall Street Journal the battle group was « just walking around, not using any kind of disguise, parking tents and armoured vehicles », and that « it was all destroyed ».
The manoeuvres in Estonia demonstrated the devastating effectiveness of Ukraine’s digital combat tools, specifically the Delta battlefield-management system. This advanced software merges live intelligence with artificial intelligence to visualise the combat zone, track enemy movements, and coordinate rapid strikes. By automating data analysis and target identification, the system allowed for a level of speed and precision that effectively blindsided Western military planners.
Delta software empowers troops to gather instantaneous reconnaissance, using automated data analysis to pinpoint vulnerabilities and orchestrate precision attacks.
During the drills, a small unit of just ten Ukrainians – acting as the opposing force – launched a devastating counter-offensive, managing to mock-destroy 17 armoured vehicles and execute 30 « strikes » in a single 12-hour window. Assessing the fallout, Aivar Hanniotti, an Estonian systems coordinator who led a unit during the exercise, said the results were « horrible » for NATO forces.
He said: « We quite easily found cars and mechanised units, and we were able to take them out quite fast with strike drones. »
According to The Telegraph, one commander reportedly observed the drill and concluded: « We are f—-d. »
It comes as Britain announced last year that it would invest £2bn in drones to make the Army « battle-ready ».
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