‘Everything has changed with drones,’ Nato warned

Frontline medics and soldiers near Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine tell world affairs editor Sam Kiley Nato is far from ready for war with Russia – and is training for a bygone era

- Sam Kiley

Ukrainian intelligence is warning that a Russian Lancet drone is prowling the sky, loitering above Kramatorsk, like a heron poised over a fish pond, ready to strike.

A laptop shows multiscreen images of medics racing through shredded forest, Russian soldiers in Ukrainian sights, bunkers being blown up - everyday terror.

This is the future of war - and the West isn't ready for what may be coming in an open conflict with Russia: mass casualties and a transformation of the battle beyond anything that Nato's armies are training for.

The laptop feed is for Rebekah Maciorowski, an American volunteer paramedic who runs the medical operations, evacuation and training for an entire battalion of men and women on Ukraine's eastern front, under its 3rd Brigade. In a conventional war, she would be a major. In this conflict? She has no idea what her rank is and cares even less.

But the revelations from this frontline soldier, one who has the rare claim to have shot down an incoming Russian drone attacking her patients, are chilling.

"You have had encounters with Nato training teams. You've talked to Nato when you've been back in Europe. Do you think that they're ready for the next war with Russia?" The Independent asks her.

"No. No, I'm honestly a little bit terrified," she replies, after more than 40 months at war here. She goes on to explain: "If you were to talk to Nato military officials, they would reassure you that everything is under control, they're well equipped, they're well prepared. But I don't think anyone can be prepared for a conflict like this. I don't think anyone can.

“And what’s concerning to me is, while they’re offering training [in Europe for Ukrainians], I think it would do them well to also take some information and training from the Ukrainians.”