Unknown Drones Spy on Ukrainian Training Grounds in Germany

As unknown drones swarmed over a German training base for Ukrainian soldiers, German officers acknowledged difficulties in countering them and instead incorporated them into the training.

As reported by Politico, drones of unknown origin continued to buzz over the tree lines of a secret training location outside Berlin, but German Lt Col Roland Bösker said while they assumed some flew with “unfriendly intentions,” it’s impossible to jam every single one of them.

“It is technically impossible to block all frequencies that can be used to steer drones,” Bösker told Politico, adding that jamming would also disable radios in the area, and adversaries can always find a way to bypass the jamming.

“Compare it with tank armor. There will always be some kind of ammunition that can pierce even the best armor,” he said.

Instead, the trainers decided to incorporate them into the training and asked Ukrainian troops to treat them as real threats they would eventually face on the battlefields in Ukraine, where drones in all forms and sizes have been commonplace.

“The way that we deal with the problem is that we integrate the enemy drones into the training by telling the soldiers to keep watch constantly,” Bösker said.

However, a 30-year-old Ukrainian platoon leader using the call sign Krug said there’s no way to mimic the real dangers posed by drones as fresh troops underwent training on trench warfare.

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The training was part of the EU Military Assistance Mission in Support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine), launched in November 2022. Its goal was to train 60,000 soldiers by this summer, where its site said 52,000 Ukrainian soldiers already finished training by May this year.

Politico said the training base in Berlin, a former East German military barrack, is one of the two major training centers under the initiative, with another one located in Poland.

German Colonel Niels Janeke, who oversaw the training from a nearby base, told the publication this wasn’t a war he was prepared for.

“I have to admit, I’m a bit of a Cold War warrior…But to be back in this conventional war fighting in Europe – I wouldn’t have imagined that,” said Janeke.

Politico noted that as the German troops trained the Ukrainian soldiers for the fighting raging 2,000 kilometers to the east, they too are utilizing that knowledge for their own training, camouflaging their troops and separating them on the field to minimize the chances of being targeted by drones.

Kyiv Post recently reported on a drone pilots academy for Ukrainians, where volunteers – including civilians and military personnel alike – received training on how to build, fix, arm and fly first-person view (FPV) drones into buildings, through the hatches of vehicles and how to carry out kamikaze attacks.