4 hours ago
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It is the world’s largest military alliance but, in reputational terms at least, Nato is currently vulnerable. For an organisation so dependent on US stability and generosity, Donald Trump’s shredding of the so-called “rules-based order” is a potentially existential threat. So Nato could use an easy PR win right now and, with Frontline: Our Soldiers Facing Putin, Channel 4 tries to provide one.
This two-parter’s premise is that, after four years of war in Ukraine, we must plan for what comes next. If Russia is emboldened by the outcome of that conflict, it might invade another ex-Soviet border state, Estonia – which is a longstanding Nato member, so Nato would be at war. Are we prepared? Any worries about which side the present US administration would cheer for are put aside, as the results of exclusive behind-the-scenes access to Nato’s past year of manoeuvres are, breathlessly, presented. The answer to the question about Nato’s readiness is a stern affirmative. Putin ought to think on.
We open at what Jonas Armstrong’s heroically over-the-top voiceover describes as “the very edge of Europe”: the Estonia/Russia border. Here, a guard named Peter is “staring directly at the Russian threat”, which on the day of filming consists of a Russian border patrolman appearing on his side of the barbed wire and pacing up and down a bit. It doesn’t feel like a reminder of “just how close danger lies”, as the narration claims, but it is the nearest the first episode of Frontline: Our Soldiers Facing Putin comes to showing us either a frontline or soldiers facing Putin.
What follows is an advertisement for Nato’s hypothetical prowess that will interest viewers with a fetish for military jargon and an aversion to serious analysis. If you experience strange tinglings upon hearing phrases like “Enhanced Forward-Presence Battle Groups”, this is the show for you. The EFPBGs in question contain 1,300 British troops permanently stationed in Estonia: we watch as they practise trench warfare. This would be “a war in which men have to fight brutally, face to face,” says Nato’s former deputy supreme allied commander in Europe, General Sir Richard Shirreff, who does not sound as if he would be disappointed were this to occur in reality. “This is total war, a war of absolute utmost brutality.”
But as Shirreff points out, 1,300 guys could not resist a Russian invasion for long. Reinforcements would be needed pronto, and to find out who’s in charge of that, we must be whisked elsewhere. “Welcome to Joint Force Command Naples,” says Armstrong, in a tone designed to provoke a mix of terror and arousal in the goggling, flag-hugging viewer. “To enter this building requires high-level security clearance. Cameras are rarely allowed inside.” Ooh! Cynics might say the interior is a quiet, unremarkable office block – look closer, however, and someone’s printed and laminated a sign on red A4 that says: “SENSITIVE AREA.” We are about to enter a “highly secure command hub”! OK, so it’s just a meeting room with a big map in it, but a place like this saw the conception of Nato’s largest operation of 2025: Exercise Steadfast Dart. (A documentary including footage of the meetings where they come up with these names is one I would prefer to watch.)
Steadfast Dart is the dress rehearsal for moving troops to a new eastern front line. Phase one sees a big army ferry complete its voyage from Southampton to Alexandropoulis, Greece, where unloading its cargo of men and machines promptly will, we are told, be paramount in the event of Putin going berserk. We embed first with Sergeant Heath of the Nato Allied Reaction Force, a cheerful man in a hard hat and hi-vis who points khaki trucks with extra-big wheels in the right direction, and then with Craftsman Peters of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, another jolly type who checks the vehicles over. They both complete their tasks without incident, as does the chef in the mess tent at the convoy support centre in Romania, where large numbers of hungry travelling soldiers must swiftly be fed. The programme tries to inject all three with reality-TV jeopardy – it’s a race against time! Can they do it?! – but it’s hopeless. Peacetime logistics are terminally mundane.
Frontline has serious business to conduct: it ends with both Shirreff and the programme itself nakedly advocating for an expansion of British military capabilities, but viewers who do not already fervently agree with the sentiment probably won’t have made it that far. Most likely, the only casualty here will be the Russian military analyst, in a chilly bunker somewhere, who has to study this programme in case it contains useful intel. They are about to have a rather dull day at work.
