Ukrainian drone pilots turn a military exercise in Sweden into a critical warning for NATO

GOTLAND, Sweden (AP) — The war game scenario was this: One of NATO ’s newest members, Sweden, was under threat by an unnamed country that was building up troops along the military alliance’s eastern border. And in an unusual twist, non-NATO member Ukraine was there to advise on drone warfare — and delivered a critical warning to the alliance.

The Associated Press was allowed to witness the Swedish-led military exercise this week as Europe faces not only the threat of Russia but the wavering of NATO’s most powerful member, the United States.

The war game that also involved U.S. forces played out with a real threat in mind. For months, Russia has ramped up sabotage including cyberattacks against critical infrastructure and disinformation against countries across Europe, as detailed by an AP investigation.

The war game scenario — with the Swedish island of Gotland in theory facing power outages and food shortages because of sabotage — tested what NATO members might do before NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5, has been invoked.

“In theory, it could happen tomorrow,” said Rear Adm. Jonas Wikström, director of the exercise.

Sweden’s chief of defense, Gen. Michael Claesson, noted that the U.S. is Europe’s most militarily capable ally so “any change in the American presence” affects the overall dynamics. He told the AP that announcements by U.S. President Donald Trump of troop reductions in Europe are interpreted “as the Americans are leaving — and they are not.”

Europe’s military leaders, however, are watching closely how Trump and his administration treat NATO, which Trump has described as a “paper tiger.” Most recently, he has ordered the withdrawal of at least 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany and threatens to remove more.

Trump also has criticized allies, and NATO, for not coming to the aid of the U.S. in the Iran war, while U.S. air defense systems and missiles have been moved toward the Middle East from Europe, raising concerns about gaps in protection. Some European nations have been told they will face delays to their orders of U.S. weapons.

Claesson denied that recent announcements — including plans for a “hybrid navy” between a group of Nordic and Baltic nations, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as announced by Gen. Sir Gwyn Jenkins, the U.K's First Sea Lord — were a hedge against a possible future where the U.S. does not come to the aid of NATO allies.

But, he said, “everything that offers European allies freedom of action is good.”

The U.K. and Norway also aim to build a combined frigate fleet, said Marte Gerhardsen, state secretary at the Norwegian Ministry of Defense.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he also has paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine and at times aligned with Moscow in negotiations to end the war.

In the war game scenario this week, Ukrainian forces had a chance to demonstrate what they have learned on the battlefield and why their country might be a worthy NATO member.

A group of Ukrainian drone pilots, invited to teach Western forces how to win at drone warfare, destroyed Sweden’s troops in an exercise where the Ukrainians played the role of the aggressor, a 24-year-old drone pilot told the AP.

“They stopped the training three times” for troops to work out what to do better, but if it were real life they would have been dead, he said, giving his call sign Tarik in line with Ukrainian military regulations.

Swedish troops have potential but need to improve their drones and tactics and commanders need a deeper understanding of drone warfare, said another pilot with the call sign Karat.

He described flying small, first-person-view attack drones on the front line against Russian forces. Sometimes drone pilots are supported by reconnaissance drone teams but other times they are “working blindly.”

Western forces cannot understand what it is like, he added: “You need to see this with your own eyes.”

All Western forces need to “learn rapidly” how to perform drone and counter-drone operations, and the “fastest” way is to listen to the Ukrainians, Claesson said.

“What they’ve taught us is you have to really focus on your survivability and how you can’t be detected,” said Brig. Gen. Curtis King with the U.S. military. At the same time, he said, Western nations need to focus on “deep” detection capabilities to spot drones from far away.

Such knowledge is desperately needed along Russia’s border with NATO where there has been a spate of drone incursions in recent months, including from Ukrainian drones sent off course by Russian jamming.

The goal is to have systems that work together so that radar made by different companies in different countries can be integrated to share data and track threats, King said. That process has started but, “we’re not there yet.”

The war game focused on the Swedish island of Gotland because it is strategically located in the Baltic Sea between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad — where Moscow has stationed missiles — and Sweden.

“If you control Gotland, you pretty much control the central part of the Baltic Sea,” Claesson said.

The Baltic Sea is a financial lifeline for Russia as vessels with its “shadow fleet” carry oil and liquefied natural gas that Moscow uses to fund its war in Ukraine.

After the Cold War, Sweden effectively abandoned its military presence on Gotland but Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted a rethink and a strengthened military presence there. And Sweden, along with Finland, decided to join NATO in 2024.

“A very reasonable scenario” is that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use Gotland to test NATO by trying to take a thin sliver of alliance territory to probe the collective reaction, Claesson said.

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.

Rear Admiral Jonas Wikstrom, exercise director of the Swedish-led Aurora 26 military exercises, poses for a photo in Gotland, Sweden, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows, Pool)

General Michael Claesson, Chief of Defense of the Swedish armed forces attends a military exercises in Gotland, Sweden, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)

A Ukrainian drone pilot, who uses the call-sign Tarik in line with Ukrainian military regulations, flies a FPV drone during a military exercises in Gotland, Sweden, Sunday, May 10, 2026. ADDITION: adds info that Tarik is the call-sign name (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)

A U.S marine serviceman stands next to a TRV 150 drone during a military exercises in Gotland, Sweden, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)

Swedish servicemen looks out of an armoured vehicle during a military exercises in Gotland, Sweden, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)

NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein's defense urged jurors Tuesday to acquit him and put an end to a #MeToo-era rape case that has gone to trial three times, while prosecutors pressed to restore a onetime conviction that got unwound.

Weinstein, the former Hollywood honcho who has been imprisoned on various sex crime convictions since 2020, watched quietly as the two sides made their closing arguments about whether he raped hairstylist and actor Jessica Mann in a New York hotel in March 2013.

“She has taken on a false narrative about all of this,” Weinstein lawyer Marc Agnifilo said.

“She has absolutely no motive to lie. None,” prosecutor Nicole Blumberg countered, noting that Mann went through five days of grueling, deeply personal testimony.

Jurors are expected to start deliberating Wednesday. They will have to sift through the complexities of a yearslong relationship between Weinstein, 73, and Mann, 40.

They met in early 2013, when she was trying to make it big in Hollywood. She testified that she anticipated a professional connection, was taken aback when he started making sexual advances but decided to have a relationship with the then-married, Oscar-winning producer.

A few weeks later, according to Mann, Weinstein abruptly took a room at a hotel where she and a friend were staying. She testified that she accompanied Weinstein upstairs to tell him she didn't want a sexual interlude, but he trapped her in the room, grabbed her arms, insisted she undress, went into the bathroom for a time, and then raped her.

“He just treated me like he owned me,” she testified last month.

Weinstein didn't testify, but his defense contends the encounter was consensual and part of a caring, if on-and-off, relationship that Mann valued until Weinstein’s #MeToo downfall in 2017. That was when news reports about allegations against him propelled a global campaign against sexual assault and sexual harassment. He has said he behaved “wrongly” but never assaulted anyone.

He was convicted in 2020 of raping Mann, got the conviction overturned, then saw a jury deadlock on it at a retrial last year.

In summations Tuesday, Agnifilo portrayed Mann as an unreliable witness making an ill-supported, implausible accusation. He cited her uncertainty about various dates and details in the years-old events, and he recalled a point when she said she was struggling to stay focused during cross-examination, prompting court to end early for the day.

Agnifilo underscored Mann's warm email exchanges and get-togethers with Weinstein before and after the alleged rape — and a musing, diary-like note she wrote to herself two days after the encounter. In the note, she expresses her misgivings about her emotional attachment in a nonexclusive relationship, asks whether she loves “him or the idea of him,” questions her “woulds and would nots,” and worries about being “a ‘bad’ person.”

The note doesn't name the man, but Agnifilo asserted that it was about Weinstein and that its silence about the alleged assault spoke volumes.

“This is how she's falling in love with him,” the defense lawyer argued.

The prosecutor's rebuttal: “She’s burying what the defendant did to her, and she’s struggling with the good parts of the defendant and the awful, the evil parts of the defendant.”

Over the years, Weinstein encouraged Mann’s acting ambitions, helped her land a hairstyling job, provided emotional support during her father’s terminal illness and tried to send her money — which she declined — when she was broke, according to trial testimony and exhibits.

To Weinstein's attorney, it amounted to “a sweet, loving, supportive relationship.”

But to Blumberg, “This was a woman who got manipulated by that man.”

While Mann acknowledged she loved “a part” of Weinstein, she testified that she begged him not to do anything sexual that day in the Manhattan hotel.

“No means no — to everyone except Harvey Weinstein,” Blumberg said, adding: “Jessica Mann deserves closure and justice.”

At points during her summation, Weinstein shook his head slightly and exchanged glances with his lawyer.

Whatever the outcome of the trial, the former studio boss still will stand convicted of other sex crimes in New York and California, though he is appealing those convictions. If convicted in the current trial, Weinstein could face up to four years in prison — less time than he already has served.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.

Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in New York. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in New York. (Eduardo Munoz/Pool Photo via AP)

Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in New York. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in New York. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)