Photo By Master Sgt. John Healy | Soldiers from Information Defense Company (IDCO), Multi-Domain Ccommand - Europe...... read more read more
TALLINN, Estonia – From the outside, the Cyber Range 14 building in downtown Tallinn appears quiet, unassuming and pristine. Inside, there’s no weapons fire, no smell of gasoline or gunpowder hanging in the air. But the absence of traditional battlefield signs does not make the mission inside any less important – in many ways, it makes it even more so.
Soldiers from Information Defense Company (IDCO), Multi-Domain Command – Europe, alongside Soldiers from the Maryland Army National Guard’s 169th Cyber Protection Team, are quietly training to defend the networks that modern societies rely on every day – and if they do their jobs correctly, most people will never even know it happened.
The training, conducted May 17-21, 2026, centered on Cyber Range 14, or CR14, a cyber training facility in Tallinn where U.S. cyber defenders worked through a realistic critical infrastructure defense scenario. For this iteration of the range, members of the Estonian Defence Forces served as the opposing force, or red team, attempting to infiltrate simulated power and rail networks from distributed locations across the city.
On the other side of the exercise, Soldiers from IDCO and the 169th CPT served as the blue team. Their mission was to move through the network, identify suspicious activity, research anomalies and secure vulnerabilities before the red team could exploit them.
The Cyber Range is a part of Sword 26, U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s premier annual exercise series, which takes place from late April through May 2026 across eight countries in the High North and Baltic region. Formerly known as DEFENDER, Sword 26 validates NATO regional defense plans and operationalizes the Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative, or EFDI.
While Sword 26 includes large-scale movement, maneuver and training across multiple countries, the work inside CR14 focused on a quieter but equally critical piece of modern defense: protecting the networks and infrastructure that allow allied forces to communicate, move and sustain operations.
“It’s not enough to know how to defend your own network in isolation,” said Maj. Marissa Robbins, blue team leader and team lead for the 169th Cyber Protection Team. “In a real-world environment, we have to be able to work with our allies, understand how they operate and defend shared systems before an adversary can use them against us.”
It was not the kind of fight marked by smoke, noise or heavy equipment. Instead, it unfolded through monitors, code, network traffic and the quiet concentration of cyber defenders working to identify the threat before it could affect the network.
The scenario reflected one of the central challenges of modern warfare: protecting the systems that make military operations possible and keep civilian life moving. Power grids, rail networks and communications systems are no longer separate from the battlefield. If an adversary can disrupt or control those networks, they can affect civilian populations, delay military movement and create uncertainty long before conventional forces ever meet.
Within that larger effort, cyber defense is a critical part of making EFDI more than a concept. Defending the digital systems that support movement, communication and daily life is essential to maintaining readiness and resilience along NATO’s eastern flank.
The exercise also reinforced the importance of training with Allies before a real-world crisis demands it. Estonia’s position on NATO’s eastern flank gives the training added relevance, but the value of the exercise extended beyond geography. Bringing U.S. Soldiers, National Guard cyber professionals and Estonian Defence Forces together allowed each organization to share experience, compare tactics, techniques and procedures, and learn how their partners approach the same problem set.
Those exchanges matter. Cyber defense is built on technical skill, but it also depends on trust, communication and familiarity. In a crisis, the first conversation between allies should not be an introduction.
By working through the scenario together, the teams gained a better understanding of each other’s standard operating procedures and decision-making processes. They also saw how different organizations bring different strengths to the same fight – whether through technical expertise, operational perspective or experience defending networks in a challenging security environment.
“Cyber defense is not just one person staring at a screen and solving everything alone,” said Sgt. Worth, a lead cyber analyst assigned to IDCO. “It takes a team looking at the problem from different angles. Working with our partners here gives us a chance to see how they approach the fight, share what we know and build the kind of trust we would need in a real-world situation.”
For the Soldiers involved, the range offered more than a simulated attack. It provided a chance to rehearse the kind of defense that is often invisible when it succeeds. A protected network rarely makes headlines. A stopped intrusion may never be noticed outside the room. But that quiet success is exactly the point.
Cyber may not look like the traditional image of warfare. There are no armored vehicles moving across a training area, no artillery rounds shaking the ground and no visible frontline. But without secure networks, the forces that depend on those systems may struggle to communicate, move, sustain and coordinate across the battlefield.
At CR14, the battlefield was quiet. The mission was not.
| Date Taken: | 05.25.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 05.26.2026 10:41 |
| Story ID: | 566093 |
| Location: | TALLINN, EE |
| Web Views: | 36 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Sword 26: Cyber Defenders Train to Secure Critical Infrastructure in Estonia, by CPT Victoria Connell, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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