© UnknownNATO patch
Ukrainian representatives participated in NATO war games simulating the alliance's response to an attack.
According to a NATO
press release,
1,500 soldiers and civilians from multiple European countries participated in the Loyal Dolos 2025 drills that were conducted at the beginning of the month.
On Sunday, the
General Staff of the Armed Forces posted on Facebook that Ukrainian officials participated in Loyal Dolos:
"Ukraine is becoming part of the collective defense architecture of NATO. Ukrainian JATEC experts have, for the first time, joined the work of the mechanisms of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty on the training LOYAL DOLOS 2025."
© UnknownJoint Force Training Centre in Bydgoszcz, Poland
Senior National Representative of Ukraine in JATEC, director of Implementation of the programs of the Joint Center NATO-Ukraine Colonel Valery Vyshnivsky said:
"The participation of Ukrainian JATEC experts in the LOYAL DOLOS 2025, which is one of the key elements of NATO's preparation according to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, has strategic significance for us, as for the first time Ukrainian representatives have been involved in the work of the Alliance's collective security mechanisms."
Kiev's military ties to NATO countries are one of the primary reasons Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Kiev agree to neutrality as a condition for ending the war.
President Zelensky recently announced that Ukraine would agree to stop seeking formal membership in the North Atlantic Alliance if members of the bloc agreed to bilateral agreements with Kiev that are similar to NATO's Article 5. Article 5 is considered the mutual defense pact in the NATO charter.
That Ukraine is continuing its integration into NATO suggests that Kiev is still seeking to become an informal member of the bloc.
Comment: NATO's 'powerful demonstration of allied cohesion and interoperability':
Approximately 1,500 soldiers and civilians across multiple European locations worked side by side to assess the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps - Greece and its capabilities as a NATO Warfighting Corps. With dynamic play, day-and-night operational scenarios, Exercise LOYAL DOLOS stood out as a flagship event in NATO's 2025 training program, showcasing allied vigilance, readiness, and the ability to respond with speed and precision to any challenge the Alliance may face. The exercise ran from 2 to 11 December.
Col Andrea Stover, Head of the Training and Exercise Division at the NATO Joint Force Training Centre and Chief Exercise Control for LOYAL DOLOS 2025, said:
"This is how we ensure allied forces remain prepared and capable of prevailing against any potential threat. Our Exercise Control team, directing the event from the Joint Force Training Centre in Bydgoszcz, Poland, ensured the exercise was challenging, dynamic, and realistic."
More than 600 military and civilian experts formed the Exercise Control team, keeping the training audience fully engaged throughout the event. Under the expert guidance of Lieutenant General (ret.) Leonardo di Marco, Senior Exercise Control Advisor, and the leadership of Major General Bogdan Rycerski, Commander of the NATO Joint Force Training Centre and Director of LODO25, participants faced complex tasks and demanding operational dilemmas.
Designed to refine and validate the Alliance's ability to operate seamlessly across multiple domains, Exercise LOYAL DOLOS 2025 focused primarily on land operations while also integrating other domains in line with NATO's commitment to a more interconnected and adaptive force. Lessons drawn from Russia's war against Ukraine were incorporated to prepare the training audience to fight and win in a rapidly evolving environment. This was also the first time Ukrainian experts were directly involved in the execution phase of this type of NATO exercise.
With Allied Land Command acting as the Officer Scheduling the Exercise — its Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Jezz Bennett, working closely with Exercise Control — and with support from the Multinational Corps South-East and the 1st United Kingdom Division, all participants received truly rigorous and ambitious training.
Throughout the exercise, the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps - Greece, the primary training audience, demonstrated its ability to plan and conduct multi-domain operations against a peer adversary, reaffirming its readiness to contribute to the defence of the Alliance.
A puff piece.
They certainly couldn't have had anything else to contribute.