A bit of commentary on the recent #Ukraine UAV crews beat #NATO in military exercise in #Sweden - here’s what First Corps “Azov” of the National Guard of Ukraine wrote[^1]

FPV crews from First Corps Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine took part in the multinational Aurora 2026 exercises in Sweden, serving as OPFOR, a simulated adversary for NATO forces and partner nations.

Then, this part touched the nerves of some European military commentators:

During a mechanized assault repelling drill, Ukrainian crews working alongside Swedish pilots from the Sweden UAV Center notionally destroyed 28 of approximately 32 vehicles. In another episode, they defeated a military airfield’s defenses in under 20 minutes without losing a single airframe, hitting every designated target.

Can’t say about Sweden but in Polish military circles this caused a lot of rather silly tribal offense with comments like “what a success propaganda”, “they didn’t stick to rules”, “it was completely different from real battle” etc.

I will just quote one Polish UAV expert Tomasz Darmoliński whom I know and who spent more time in Ukraine exchanging experiences with UAV operators than most of any Polish soliders:

This is not simply a matter of claiming that ‘the Ukrainians defeated NATO’. It was a training exercise, not a real battle. A more important conclusion is this: Ukrainian units, which have for years operated in an environment saturated with drones, electronic warfare, imagery reconnaissance and rapid decision-making loops, already operate according to a different battlefield logic than many Western formations.

If you’ve ever been into #infosec wargaming, that’s precisely what is happening here. You repeatedly fail and lose in a sandbox environment, so that you can learn why you failed. Such exercises are the best possible place to make these mistakes, because, unlike in real battle, you have infinite lives.

What remains a new training domain for some NATO armies is an everyday combat environment for Ukraine. There, FPV is not merely an add-on to manoeuvres. It is an element of reconnaissance, striking, blocking movement, isolating the combat zone and forcing the enemy to change tactics.

What he describes is not some Copernican paradigm shift - it’s a major change in operational philosophy and procedures, and that’s precisely why it has to be trained over and over again.

The key conclusions are quite stark. Firstly, the classic practice of concentrating vehicles, columns and support elements in a single area is becoming extremely risky. Ukrainian operators had already pointed out during the earlier Hedgehog 2025 exercises in Estonia that Western habits of maintaining a tight formation are almost suicidal in conditions of mass drone use.

And the above is a very concrete lesson, if you remember massive Russian columns burning on the approach to Kyiv in 2022.

Secondly, FPV forces dispersal, camouflage, reduced signature and a constant focus on survivability. It is not enough to have system-level air defence. One must be aware that the immediate threat may come from a small platform, with a very short reaction time. Thirdly, commanders must understand drones not as ‘operators’ equipment’, but as part of the combat system. Ukrainian operators emphasised that Western forces have the potential, but must develop tactics, counter-drone measures and the level of understanding of this domain at the command level more quickly. Interviewees quoted by the AP in its report on the exercises shared a similar view.

This is the most important lesson from Aurora 26: the advantage did not stem from miraculous technology. The Kyiv Post notes that the Ukrainians used rather standard solutions familiar from the front line, including FPV, tablets, goggles and simple controllers. The advantage stemmed from practice, procedures, the integration of reconnaissance with strike operations, and experience gained in real warfare.

[^1]: https://xcancel.com/azov_media/status/2054955335664734510?s=20

[^2]: https://xcancel.com/DarmolinskiT/status/2055550247355478415?s=20

I like the Register's headline: "Anthropic’s bug-hunting Mythos was greatest marketing stunt ever, says cURL creator"

... even though I did not say that. 😂

https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/11/anthropics-bug-hunting-mythos-was-greatest-marketing-stunt-ever-says-curl-creator/5238111

Newsletter: Crypto billionaire Justin Sun, who escaped fraud allegations after investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the Trump family’s crypto projects, is now accusing the Trumps’ project of fraud.

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-105/

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpol #USpolitics #CitationNeededNewsletter

NEW: Kaspersky says hackers planted and activated a backdoor in the popular Windows disk imaging app Daemon Tools a month ago, infecting thousands of computers around the world in a n ongoing, "widespread" attack.

The attack appears to be ongoing. A representative for Disc Soft, which makes Daemon Tools, said it was aware of Kaspersky's report and was investigating.

This is the latest supply chain attack targeting software used by a large number of people.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/05/kaspersky-suspects-chinese-hackers-planted-a-backdoor-into-daemon-tools-in-widespread-attack/