Source: msn.com
Hidden in dense woodland 18 miles from the Russian border, Nato anti-tank teams lie in wait to ambush a Finnish column.
The scrape of metal tracks across a dirt road pierces the silent forest as the pack of German-made Leopard 2 tanks charges forward.
Without warning, camouflaged soldiers break cover from the treeline and unleash a volley of missiles at the heavily armoured vehicles before the Finnish conscripts have time to react.
Within seconds, three tanks are destroyed and their young crews, aged 19 and 20, are killed as the anti-tank teams quietly slip back into the wilderness.
Almost 300 miles to the south, in the lake-potted forests near Kouvola, another group of Leopard 2s is immobilised by drones and artillery strikes on the border, having bunched up too closely together on a track through pine trees.
Both attacks were simulated by Nato forces as part of a major military exercise called Northern Star involving 5,000 troops from seven nations, including Britain, in Finland’s heavily wooded eastern Kainuu region.
But the drills reveal what could be Nato’s reality in a future war against Russia if the alliance doesn’t move away from traditional arms such as tanks and towards modern warfare. Last week Latvia’s military chief warned that Moscow has gained an edge over Nato in drone warfare and could exploit Europe’s slow rearmament drive and invade the Baltics by 2028.
Nato commanders now face a looming crisis: learning how to fight on a 21st-century battlefield dominated by AI-assisted drones that can rapidly spot and target tanks and military vehicles from the skies.
The alliance must now keep up with the evolution of land warfare to be able to fight Russia, military chiefs told The Telegraph. If it doesn’t, there are fears we could see the fall of the Baltics to Moscow.
That will mean speeding up the procurement of drones and the development of factories to build them at scale, while pumping more money into developing the next generation of military vehicles with integrated autonomous systems.
Traditionally, the frontlines were ruled by tanks. Acting as armoured juggernauts, they were able to punch through enemy defences with firepower.
And while military planners still believe tanks have a place in war, some have questioned whether they are able to hold ground as they did in the past.
Nowhere is this more evident in Ukraine, which has become a graveyard for thousands of Ukrainian and Russian tanks and their crews since the full-scale invasion.
Russia has lost a staggering 11,974 tanks and almost 25,000 armoured vehicles, while Kyiv has lost an estimated 5,700 tanks and armoured vehicles to drones, mines and missiles, according to Ukraine’s military.
Among the casualties included a British Challenger 2 main battle tank, gifted to Ukraine, which was destroyed in 2023. The vehicle was one of the most potent weapons in the British Army’s arsenal but was immobilised after hitting a mine.
Across Ukraine, drones account for more than 90 per cent of battlefield casualties, the vast majority being tanks and armoured vehicles.
The enormous task of overcoming this modern threat faces commanders from across Nato, as allied nations scramble to re-equip their militaries and stockpile weapons systems capable of defending against the inevitable drone onslaught that will dominate the wars of the future.
Cpl Julius Arkkilä, a Finnish tank commander who was “eliminated” alongside his crew during one of the mock ambushes in the Northern Star exercise, said drones have completely changed modern warfare.
“Operating a tank in this terrain is dangerous because there are drones now, so you need to keep your eyes on the air and then on the road and everyone else,” Cpl Arkkilä, who was recently conscripted, said.
“Things can change in a second. My gunner didn’t spot the enemies in time, so yes, we’re all dead.”
British soldiers who were testing out the Army’s new fleet of drones in the Nato exercise, said they need to be rolled out more quickly to help them prepare for a conflict with Russia – and provide an extra layer of protection for armoured vehicles.
The location of the Northern Star military drills is likely to be one of Russia’s first targets. Finland’s intelligence chief has already warned that Vladimir Putin is seeking to increase troop numbers close to the Finnish-Russian border.
Lt Col David Mans, the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was involved in fending off attacks by Finnish tanks, using NLAW anti-tank missiles to simulate disabling the vehicles.
The 43-year-old British officer, whose face was streaked in camouflage paint, was confident in his soldiers’ abilities as some of the UK’s most elite troops.
But he said: “Deploying a battle group as we have to this part of the world, fairly close to the Russian border, makes everyone think about the very real issues that we need to deal with.”
Throughout the Northern Star drill, hostile forces were simply known as the “red team”. But for troops on the ground, it was clear the enemy they were preparing for was Russia.
It was the first large-scale military training drill carried out in Finland since the country joined Nato in 2023 after Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
Finland’s shared border with Russia is the longest of any Nato member, stretching about 830 miles. This extensive frontier makes up the majority of Nato’s eastern flank.
Maj Gen Pekka Turunen, Finland’s defence intelligence chief, warned that the Kremlin was looking to accelerate its military build-up on the Finnish border, posing a renewed threat to Nato.
In recent months, Russia has invested in rejuvenating a dilapidated Soviet-era garrison in Petrozavodsk, about 100 miles from Finland.
It’s believed the site will be occupied by the 44th Army Corps, which has about 15,000 troops. Satellite images, uncovered by the Finnish media, have shown military vehicles moving into the base, which has been cleared of overgrown shrubbery.
Russia has also based the 71st Guards Motor Rifle Division, 61st Naval Infantry Brigade and 14th Army Corps close to Finland in the north, near Murmansk. Further south is the 80th Separate Arctic Motor Rifle Brigade, 44th Army Corps and the 69th Guards Motor Rifle Division.
Combined, this could equate to about 50,000 troops. Although Russia’s losses in Ukraine mean the true number of current personnel could be far lower.
“As the war in Ukraine continues, the garrisons mainly focus on providing basic training to units being sent to Ukraine,” an intelligence report by the Finnish Defence Forces added of the build-up.
“Following the end of the war, however, it is clear that one of the main directions in which Russia’s armed forces will be developed is Finland.”
The location of Northern Star in Kainuu would likely be a major route for any such Russian push into Finland and one Nato would need to hold.
It’s also a site that carries historic weight. In the Winter War of 1939-40, Russian leader Joseph Stalin committed about 750,000 Red Army troops and more than 2,500 tanks and 4,000 fighter aircraft to invading Finland before getting bogged down.
Despite being heavily outgunned, the 350,000-strong Finnish army, with just 32 tanks, used the terrain to inflict devastating losses on Russia, with an estimated 150,000 of Stalin’s men killed compared to around 25,000 Finns during the 105-day fight.
It’s a tactic today’s Finnish commanders say they are working with allies to mirror should Putin seek to replicate Stalin’s botched invasion of the Nordic nation, only this time using drones to eliminate troops and armour more rapidly than ever before.
Col Ari Määttä is deputy commander of the Finnish army’s Karelia Brigade, one of the country’s best-equipped units. Asked what message he had for Putin if the Russian leader was contemplating attacking, he said: “Don’t do it. It will cost you a lot… We are ready.”
To combat the threat posed by Russia, Nato has set up the eastern flank deterrence line (EFDI), to defend its border from Finland to Romania.
It is like a modern-day Maginot Line, an ill-fated series of fortifications built by France in the 1930s but which failed to stop Nazi Germany from invading in the Second World War.
However, Nato chiefs are confident the EFDI will be able to hold, using AI-enabled targeting and autonomous systems to destroy assaulting troops and vehicles in a kill zone stretching hundreds of miles..
“We have changed our exercises to directly rehearse how we will fight,” said Gen Christopher Donahue, the commander of US Army Europe & Africa.
“We are demonstrating our ability to provide lethal forces alongside allies and operationalise Nato’s eastern flank deterrence initiative.”
While Finland’s standing army is relatively small, at about 24,000 personnel, it has one of the biggest reserve forces in Nato. The country has about 900,000 reservists and can rapidly mobilise 280,000 troops in the event of a war. By comparison, Britain has a reserve force of about 24,000 soldiers and just over 70,000 fully trained, full-time troops.
Military service is mandatory for all Finnish men when they turn 18 and voluntary for women in the Nordic country of 5.6 million. Conscripts may serve between six, nine, or 12 months, depending on their training.
Pte Aapo Heikkilä, 20, who was part of Cpl Arkkilä’s tank crew, said the drill was invaluable. “We haven’t fought that much,” he said. “This was our first real battle, despite being here for days. But we have experienced what sort of real war is.”
He was also full of praise for British troops, adding: “They are all professional soldiers, so they really know their stuff well. That really helps when they’re on our side, but also we have to understand when they’re against us, they’re not just conscripts, they are real soldiers.”
More than 10,000 Finns were involved in the training, which also involved hundreds of British troops, as well as Army Wildcat helicopter teams.
For British personnel involved in Northern Star, it proved a stark reminder about the threat Moscow still poses, with defence chiefs fearing Russia could reconstitute its military by 2030 following its bloody losses in Ukraine.
Lt Col Dave Crosbie, of 16 Air Assault Brigade, said the exercise was about getting Nato troops ready to fight on terrain that is similar to that in Russia.
“Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s clear that Russia is the primary focus for the British Army,” he told The Telegraph shortly after British troops took part in an aerial assault drill with American, Italian and Polish troops.
“We’re close to the Russian border at the moment, so the ground that we’re seeing is very similar to one in which we are likely to fight in the future.”
During the war game, British troops took part in a series of mock air assaults alongside other Nato allies, deploying from two Chinook helicopters. The drill was designed to test how elite allied units could work together.
The exercise was also a critical proving ground for the Army’s new fleet of drones, which are slowly being rolled out across the military.
Troops from the 3rd Battalion The Rifles have been equipped with the Ghost, a surveillance drone which operates with AI to spot targets for mortar crews and help them to adjust their fire more rapidly, and the Bolt, a smaller UAV capable of striking enemy troops.
Currently, the Army has around 6,000 drones in its arsenal. However, it is understood these could be depleted within a week in a war with Russia. Soldiers say the pace of drone delivery needs to increase, describing the kit as “absolute game-changers”.
“We need to get them rolled out like now. I can’t emphasise it enough,” said Cpl John Mackenzie, 27, who was training in Finland.
“These are becoming battle-winning bits of kit and they’ve proven their worth to us. There are sceptics, there always are. But the systems, especially like the Ghost and Bolt, they’re definitely making our lives as forward observers a lot easier.”
Other equipment due to be tested included new unmanned ground vehicles capable of delivering ammunition and supplies to the frontlines, as well as running surveillance missions. Similar technology has already been used on the battlefields of Ukraine to great success.
Lt Col Tom Redon, commanding officer of 3 Rifles, said troops were rapidly trying to get to grips with the new technology, in which Ukraine is a world leader – with Russia fast becoming an expert.
“It’s about working out how to optimise it, how to integrate it into our existing systems, and also to work with our partners effectively,” Lt Col Redon said.
Brig Gen Ari Laaksonsen, commander of the Finnish forces’ Kainuu Brigade and exercise director of Northern Star, said working with Nato allies on how to combine using the unforgiving terrain of his homeland with drones and new technology was vital.
The grizzled commander insisted Finnish people were “very pragmatic” about the dangers now facing their country and the need for Europe and Nato to prepare.
But he added: “There is a saying in Finland, which is not easy to translate, but it means that the wise man is always preparing before you need it… And we are willing to defend, if needed.”
