UKRAINIAN NAVAL DRONES: CHANGING NATO & AMERICAN MIDDLE EAST NAVAL STRATEGY

In the recent naval exercise off of Portugal called REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger 2025, the Ukrainian Navy, which in essence has no warships was asked to participate with its naval drones.

Ukraine played the Red Team. It led a force in opposition to warships from the US, UK, Australia, Spain, Portugal, Holland & Belgium. They deployed MAGURA V7 and other drones. They used the Ukrainian Delta C2 system and coordinated just over 100 unmanned drone platforms, subsurface, surface, aerial and ground based.

The mission was to defeat the Blue Fleet – the NATO warships – and defend a port from attack and occupation.

Ukraine won all five of the scenarios put in front of them. One frigate was ‘sunk’ and several others were so significantly ‘damaged’ they would have likely joined it.

At one point the officer commanding the ‘sunk’ Frigate radioed in ‘well are you going to attacks us or what?’ He was unaware that his ship had sunk and they didn’t even know the Ukrainian naval drones had hit them.

NATO blue forces repeatedly failed to prevent successful penetration by sea drones, even when they knew attacks were coming, highlighting serious gaps in close‑in defense, detection, and reaction procedures.

I know NATO and naval officers perfectly well. They would have at first, refused to believe the exercise could be so damning. There would have been complaints and a review over whether or not the Red Team had played by the rules – that’s normal enough. Once verified, there would have been disbelief, slow realization that their entire world has just been turned upside down tactically and they have no experience and probably little in the way of equipment to deal with it.

What they learned from this was a real need for better layered defences; more effective close‑in weapons, electronic warfare capabilities they don’t have, and hard‑kill/soft‑kill options tailored to swarms of small drones rather than just missiles or manned lower caliber guns. By which they mean lasers and possibly, pre-installed anti-drone drones in ready batteries.

Urgent improvement in detection, such as enhanced sensors, ISR, and command‑and‑control to spot low‑signature drones in cluttered coastal and convoy environments before they reach weapons range. The integration of unmanned systems on the defensive side: blue forces need their own coordinated drone and USV layers, not only manned ships, to screen ports and convoys. All of this also needs something NATO lacks completely – a capable Command‑and‑control modernization that can manage these needs. Ukraine’s DELTA system, which coordinated over 100 unmanned platforms, demonstrated a style of fast, data‑rich C2 that NATO now sees it must match and integrate with.

The biggest lesson of all was the simple fact the Blue team didn’t even know the drones were there until it was far too late. It is not a surprise to me, and probably not to you if you have been reading my reports for some time. We have now seen a massacre of NATO forces on land and at sea by a country with limited land resources that defeated an armoured brigade and now an entire NATO fleet. Just with drones.

My concern is that the evidence of the superiority of drone warfare (which it will have until it is eventually countered to a degree, it will never be stopped), is already dangerously late. What have the NATO nations been doing for the past few years? Sitting there like three brass monkeys, Here, See and Do no evil to upset the status quo?

We have to remember that the second best drone army in the world is the Russians. You cannot help but wonder if even in their current rough state they may be far more of a problem on land at least, than NATO can handle.

The United States was part of that naval exercise, and its currently engaged in major air and naval operations against Iran. For the navy it’s proving exhausting. Keeping three carriers and their battlegroups operating all at once in constant combat burns through a great deal of munitions – and while a carrier holds a substantial stock, its almost certainly using up all of the available Combat Logistics Force’s resources which include ammo ships, oilers (and aviation fuel supply), and dry stores the fleet has operational. They’re going to have to be running long resupply trips to the nearest viable support base where ammo is likely being flown into for loading. That base should be the US Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrein, but who in their right mind is going there? Beyond that there is no viable base with docking capacity and cargo transfer that’s viable closer than Suda Bay in Crete. Diego Garcia isn’t equipped with that kind of facility.

What became clear during the REPMUS exercise and even before that, because US carriers just don’t go to Bahrein anymore – The USS Nimitz made one visit for one day on August 10 2025 as part of her goodbye tour – and that was the only time a carrier has been there since her last visit in 2020.

The reason is simple. Iran’s naval and air drones. The heap of embarrassment that would be laid out if a carrier was hit by either would be extreme, so nobody takes the risk. The August visit was in the post-2024 Iran-Israel conflict and US bombing of its nuclear facilities. Iran wasn’t in the mood to worsen its position.

The point is that drones are having distinct strategic implications on surface warship operations. Like it or not they have forced the US to adapt and made no-go areas out of certain waters. Last year the carrier Theodore Roosevelt was forced to maneuver so wildly in the Red Sea to avoid Houthi drones she lost an F-18 Super Hornet and its towing vehicle from the hangar deck as it fell backwards overboard, coming out of the lift.

Let’s also be clear that one of the reasons the Straits of Hormuz are closed is because of drones and the high risk. Trumps war has now reached a point where he and the US Navy cannot control what’s happening – they don’t want to send warships to escort anything because REPMUS has proven to them they have nothing that can do the job safely. They have no desire to see a US warship hit or even sunk. That happened years ago with the USS Cole and that was embarrassing enough. It’s also no wonder that the UK, France, Japan and China are all refusing to get involved. They too know the risks and they’re not about to cover Donalds back for him and let him off the hook for what he started at their risk. You don’t exactly see the navies of the Gulf states racing to the rescue either – and it’s their oil that’s being shipped.

So, two nations with no navy left have, in one case destroyed much of their enemies and forced it to sit in its sealed off naval base, and the other with a handful of drones is determining the fact of the global economy and dictating operational areas the US Navy cannot function in.

You won’t be surprised to know that Taiwan is investing heavily in anti-ship and aerial drones. If China is invading its got to come across that 100 mile wide stretch of water between it and the mainland. It’s as obvious as daylight what they need to do to defend from it.

It’s Ukraine who is coming to the rescue of the Americans and the Arabs – not that the Americans will thank them for it, it’s simply too much to admit Ukraine has ‘cards’.

It’s Ukraine and Iran that are teaching us in very different ways, we are not equipped and not ready for the next war. And we are no improving fast enough to be ready. President Zelensky will have been in the UK by the time you read this. There he will have signed a comprehensive UK-Ukraine deal on drones, Ai integration and cooperation of immense significance. Both will learn from each other. The Ai agency will be integrated into the Ukrainian MoD with UK funding and expertise. The Uk will learn the lessons from the drone war and its integration with Ai. It’s better than nothing.

And it’s now time to repeat a mantra that needs to be repeated again and again. NATO needs Ukraine – regardless of what Russia or America want. We need them. Everything should be done that can be done to make that happen.

The Analyst

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