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How Ukraine is reshaping NATO

Ukraine is no longer just a recipient of NATO support, it is increasingly reshaping the Alliance itself. From battlefield-tested drone warfare tactics to unprecedented institutional integration, Russia’s full-scale invasion has accelerated a transformation in which Ukraine has become both NATO’s partner and one of its most important sources of military innovation.

June 23, 2026 - Kseniya Sotnikova - AnalysisIssue 4 2026Magazine

An Australian and Ukrainian drone pilot fly First Person View (FPV) drones side by side. At an undisclosed location in the United Kingdom, during training exercises as part of Operation Interflex, Ukrainian military personnel shared their experience in using FPV drones in combat operations, which has been in turn used to feed back into the training programme for Ukrainian soldiers. The way that the Ukrainians had to fight has changed rapidby over the years since Russia’s full scale invasion, meaning training programmes for Ukrainain soldiers had to be constantly updated to keep the pace with new threats in the battlefield.

In May 2025, during NATO’s “Hedgehog” exercise in Estonia, a team of ten Ukrainian drone operators successfully simulated the destruction of 17 armoured vehicles, and by conducting about 30 strikes effectively “neutralized” two NATO battalions in about half a day. This simulation exposed critical gaps in the Alliance’s preparedness for modern warfare: the Ukrainian operators, applying their most recent experience directly from active combat, had brought to the table the expertise that NATO had spent years rather theorizing about but had never experienced at this intensity.

This scene is an illustration of the fundamental shift in NATO’s relationship with Ukraine. Kyiv has a long track record of being a committed partner, the only non-member state that has participated in all major NATO-led operations and missions. Since the Russian full-scale invasion of 2022, Ukraine has received unprecedented assistance from the Alliance and its member states. Now, in the fifth year since the full-scale invasion, we can state that Ukraine has become a transformative factor for NATO itself: what began as an emergency response to the full-fledged war at NATO’s borders has now evolved into a set of unprecedent changes to the Alliance’s institutional architecture, operational practices, and conceptual frameworks.

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