Ukraine nearly routed NATO team in cyberwar simulation based on Russian scenario, - FT
The Ukrainian team nearly defeated its NATO "opponent" during a three-day exercise focused on countering cyberattacks and disinformation, which simulated real-world scenarios of Russian hybrid threats. The Alliance representatives secured victory by only the narrowest of margins.
The Financial Times reports this, according to Censor.NET.
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The training took place in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz at the NATO Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Center NATO-Ukraine (Jatec)—the only official Alliance institution that is jointly staffed and managed by both NATO officers and Ukrainian specialists (one-third of the center’s 60 employees are representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense, and Ukraine’s special services).
As part of the exercise, an international panel—comprising leading researchers and experts on disinformation—simulated three crisis scenarios using fictional countries as examples:
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A massive cyberattack on the power grid of the fictional country of Perantsa by its aggressive, authoritarian neighbor, the country of Karti;
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A large-scale flood caused by human intervention;
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Hackers take over the national banking system.
Loss
Ukrainian representatives were assigned the role of playing for the "aggressor" team (the country of Karti). Ukrainians, in the role of "attackers," flooded social media with thousands of AI-generated posts branding the Perantsi government as utterly corrupt and completely incompetent. In response, the NATO team resorted to standard calls for "national unity."
According to the jury’s assessment, the "Karti" team lost by only a narrow margin in two scenarios. According to the director of the Bundeswehr Digitalization Center, the Ukrainian participants demonstrated greater creativity, better AI skills, and, overall, a faster pace of work compared to the NATO team.
Among the reasons for the "aggressor's" defeat was its inability to maintain a consistent narrative with a limited number of key messages. However, the Ukrainian side challenged this conclusion: "In real life, key messages change every day—just look at what Russia is doing."
A mutually beneficial exchange of experiences
For Ukraine, participation in such events under NATO auspices is an extremely important tool for direct and deep integration into the Alliance’s structures, especially given that the country’s rapid political accession to the bloc is currently unlikely.
This process is entirely reciprocal: while the Armed Forces of Ukraine share their unique combat experience with their European and American counterparts in the areas of large-scale drone deployment, modern electronic warfare, and the use of decentralized command structures, Kyiv, in turn, gains direct access to NATO’s cutting-edge software and engineering capabilities
