Frontline: Our Soldiers Stand Up to Putin Review – If you have an obsession with military terminology, you’ll love this | television

IIt is the world’s largest military alliance, but by reputation at least, NATO is currently weak. For an organization that relies so heavily on US stability and generosity, Donald Trump’s shredding of the so-called “rules-based order” poses a potential existential threat. So NATO can benefit from an easy PR win now, and with Frontline: Our Soldiers vs. Putin, Channel 4 is trying to provide just such a win.

This two-part premise is that after four years of war in Ukraine, we must plan for what comes next. If Russia becomes more emboldened as a result of this conflict, it may invade another former Soviet border state, Estonia – a long-time NATO member, which means NATO would be at war. Are we ready? Any concerns about which side the current US administration will be cheering for have been put to rest, with the results of exclusive behind-the-scenes access to NATO maneuvers over the past year presented with gusto. The answer to the question about NATO readiness is a strict affirmative. Putin must think.

We open to what Jonas Armstrong’s heroic voiceover describes as “the very edge of Europe”: the border between Estonia and Russia. Here, a guard named Peter “stares directly at the Russian threat,” which on the day of filming consists of a Russian border patrol member posing on his side of the barbed wire and pacing up and down slightly. It doesn’t feel like a reminder of “how close the danger is,” as the narration claims, but it’s as close as the first episode of Frontline: Our Soldiers vs. Putin shows us either the front line or the soldiers facing Putin.

What follows is a revelation of NATO’s hypothetical prowess that will interest viewers with a penchant for military jargon and an aversion to serious analysis. If you feel a strange tingle when you hear phrases like “combat decks with enhanced frontal presence,” then this is the show for you. The EFPBGs in question contain 1,300 British soldiers permanently stationed in Estonia: we watch them practicing trench warfare. This will be “a war in which men will have to fight brutally, face to face,” says former Deputy Supreme Commander of NATO Europe, General Sir Richard Shirriff, who does not appear to be disappointed if that happens on the ground. “It is an all-out war, a war of the utmost brutality.”

But as Shirreff points out, 1,300 men were unable to resist the Russian invasion for long. Reinforcements will be needed immediately, and to find out who is responsible for this, we must be moved elsewhere. “Welcome to Joint Forces Command Naples,” Armstrong said in a tone designed to evoke a mixture of awe and excitement in the flag-hugging viewer. “Entering this building requires a high-level security clearance. Cameras are rarely allowed in.” Oh! Cynics might say the interior is a quiet, unremarkable office building – yet if you look closely, you’ll find a sign printed and laminated on red A4 paper that says: ‘Sensitive area’. We’re about to enter a ‘highly secure command center’! Well, it’s just a conference room with a big map, but a place like this saw the visualization of NATO’s largest operation in 2025: Exercise Steadfast Arrows. (A documentary with footage of the meetings in which they came up with these names is the one I’d rather watch.)

Steadfast Dart is training to move troops to a new eastern front line. The first phase sees a large military ferry complete its journey from Southampton to Alexandroupolis in Greece, where we are told that unloading its cargo of men and machinery immediately would be crucial in the event of a Putin rampage. We join first with Sergeant Heath of the NATO Response Force, a cheerful man in a hard hat who points very large wheeled trucks in the right direction, and then with Craftsman Peters of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, another jovial type inspecting the vehicles. They both complete their missions without incident, as does the chef in the mess tent at a convoy support center in Romania, where large numbers of hungry traveling soldiers must be fed quickly. The show attempts to inject all three into the danger of reality TV – it’s a race against time! Can they do that?! – But it’s hopeless. Logistics in peacetime are extremely mundane.

Frontline has serious work to do: it ends both Shirreff and the program itself with an explicit call for expanding Britain’s military capabilities, but viewers who don’t already strongly agree with those sentiments probably won’t get that far. Most likely, the only victim here will be a Russian military analyst, in a cold bunker somewhere, who has to study this program in case it contains useful information. They’re about to have a rather boring day at work.