June 5, 2025: While NATO admitted to sending substantial material aid to Ukraine, they were less forthcoming about how closely Ukrainian and NATO military commanders worked together. This collaboration began before the 2022 Russian invasion. In 2014, when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula, NATO personnel were already helping discover exactly what the Russians were doing and what their goals were. This required collaboration between Ukrainian and NATO intelligence, espionage and covert operations organizations.

This very active partnership did not come quickly or easily. For example, American forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, something Ukrainians were afraid would happen to them a year later. U.S. and NATO officials explained that while Afghanistan was a landlocked, undeveloped nation in Central Asia, Ukraine was a part of Europe. The Ukrainian desire to join NATO was one of the reasons Russia invaded. Russia considered Ukraine a part of Russia that had become independent via a NATO strategy of slowly taking Russia apart. Russians saw themselves as the victim here and some westerners agreed with that. Ukrainians explained that Russia was never a victim and often a predator. For centuries Russia has been absorbing neighboring states. Most countries currently bordering Russia will confirm that and those that don’t are intimidated by Russian threats, or at least their current leaders are.

The Russians apparently didn’t know how thoroughly and quickly the Americans and NATO allies came to aid Ukraine. Shortly after Russia invaded, several senior Ukrainian generals were shown the top-secret operations center NATO had built in Germany to coordinate support operations for Ukraine. That was not just about supplies of weapons and munitions, but also intelligence from listening into secret Russian communications and a continuous photographic record of what the Russians were doing. At that point the Ukrainian generals realized they had a chance against the Russians. They were surprised at how well NATO had prepared for a war that was only a few months old.

The surprise was quickly followed by massive and continuous shipments of weapons, munitions and economic assistance. NATO analysts knew that Ukraine was the home of a very entrepreneurial and inventive people. When it came to science, technology and manufacturing the Ukrainians were able to conceptualize, develop and build new military equipment in record time. About one percent of Ukraine’s 42 million people were involved in the manufacturing effort that took place in homes, garages, abandoned factory buildings, barns or outside when the weather permitted. This was not a sudden development because for centuries Ukraine had been the hope of better educated problem solvers. The Tsars and Soviets tried to crush this Cossack spirit and failed.

Russia also had Cossacks, the freewheeling, independent raiders that had defended southern Russia and Ukraine for a long time. As always, the Ukrainian approach was more effective. The Russians didn’t realize this until they invaded. Nearly a million casualties later the Russians claim to be determined to stay in the fight until they win. The Ukrainians have a similar attitude. Ukraine has many allies and supporters, while Russia has North Korea and Iran. These three heavily sanctioned nations are up against a coalition that controls half the economic power in the world.

On the battlefield that advantage resulted in Ukrainian forces receiving a continuous flow of weapons, including new ones that were first used in Ukraine. For the donor nations this was a major sales assist because now nearly all their weapons and equipment could be described as battle tested. So could the Russians, who had a higher percentage of weapons failures than Ukraine and its NATO suppliers.

Early in the war NATO did not want the Ukrainians to use NATO-supplied missiles to attack Russia itself. However, the Ukrainians were free to use their own long range drones and missiles to attack targets deep inside Russia. After that NATO let Ukraine use donated long-range missiles however they wanted.

Another Ukrainian innovation was drone warfare. The Ukrainians invented this along with a wide variety of drone models. Some contained video cameras that enabled their Ukrainian operators to seek out and find targets to attack the small explosive charge each drone carried. In some cases, the drones spotted a target that required artillery or a missile. The Ukrainians fired one 155mm shell or one missile at each target and the nearby drone recorded the result. The Russians quickly adopted drones but were never able to keep with Ukrainian innovations or reliability. The Russians tried using electronic jamming to disrupt the drone control signal. The Ukrainians quickly came up with a countermeasure for that.

This reconnaissance, surveillance and reaction time dominance hit Russian headquarters that were constantly found and attacked near the front line. This happened when the Russians began an offensive operation and often crippled the ongoing attack because there was no one in charge. The Russians adapted but were never able to completely solve this problem.

Millions of drones later Russia sees victory in Ukraine slipping away. Leader Vladimir Putin vows to fight as long as it takes. Putin does not comment on what he will do when he has so little to fight with that it is having no impact. Putin also has to worry about the looming collapse of the Russian railroad system and economy. Ukrainian drones have destroyed most of the Russian trucks and now supplies are traveling the last twenty or thirty kilometers in civilian cars and vans as well on the backs of pack animals.

As innovative as the Ukrainians were, they received some help from NATO. For example, the Ukrainian naval drones that defeated the Russian Black Sea Fleet got their start when the United States donated the prototype of a naval drone developed for Taiwan to use in stopping a Chinese invasion. Ukraine used that to develop an ever-expanding line of naval droves using new technology the Americans have access to.

China does not like that, which helps explain why China is quietly supplying Russia with lots of equipment. China insists that this does not include weapons, but it does contain essential components for the manufacture of weapons and munitions. Russia is the only useful ally China has. An emasculated Russia would leave China with no useful allies.

One of the more intangible but vital items Ukraine received from NATO was a constant stream of data on where the Russian forces were and what they were up to. Russia was chagrined to discover that NATO would not provide Ukraine with location information on senior Russian political and military leaders. NATO needed someone to negotiate with while the Ukrainians preferred to keep killing Russian leadership until it ended the war. Even before the invasion, Russia was, and still is, trying to kill Ukrainian leaders. Russian leaders are still being killed inside Russia, indicating that Ukraine has a network of agents inside Russia. The Ukrainian and Russian languages are similar as are customs common to both countries. Before the war both Russia and Ukraine sought to contact and recruit these people as agents. The Ukrainians were far more successful and mysterious explosions, train derailments and assassinations continue to occur inside Russia.

NATO knew of these operations because the NATO central control center in Germany contains several dozen Ukrainian officers and officials. Ukraine had become an unofficial member of NATO and that will become official when the war was over.