Why a new Western training program for Ukrainian soldiers skips drone piloting and electronic warfare lessons

Ukraine is so good at understanding and teaching how to pilot drones that it's not something Western trainers are focusing on.

Dmytro Smolienko/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images Western soldiers are helping to train Ukrainian soldiers to fight Russia.

Trainers say they don't teach drone piloting because Ukraine already does it better.

Drones are woven into the training though because they're ubiquitous in the war.

A new training program for Ukrainian soldiers on NATO soil isn't teaching them to pilot drones or conduct electronic warfare because Ukraine already knows how to teach those skills itself.

Ukrainian soldiers are learning battlefield skills at a purpose-built camp in southeastern Poland as part of a Norway-led multinational effort called Operation Legio, which Business Insider recently visited.

The effort aims to bring more Western expertise, doctrine, leadership, and specialist skills to Ukrainian troops, while Ukraine decides which skills it wants the training to focus on.

"We do not do drone courses.

We do not do courses within electronic warfare," Maj.

John, the S3 Operations Officer in charge of synchronizing the overall training operation, told Business Insider, asking to be identified by his first name for security reasons.

Western militaries are teaching their own soldiers how to pilot drones with simulators and obstacle courses.

But for Ukrainian troops at Camp Jomsborg, the training skips that step because "they have excellent drone training and education, and electronic warfare education.

They can fix that themselves.

So that hasn't been a request from the Ukrainians," John said.