The European Union has formally launched an initiative to establish a drone wall along the bloc’s eastern flank, a groundbreaking step being taken amid alarming violations of airspace at the hands of Russia.
The inaugural meeting of the project took place on Friday afternoon and brought together ten member states: Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Finland. The European Commission chaired the talks.
Ukraine was also invited to participate. The country has developed a high-tech edge in the sector and is estimated to have the capacity to produce four million drones annually. This week, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Ukraine would begin exporting domestically produced weapons, lifting a martial law restriction.
NATO was present as an observer.
Discussions are meant to continue next week during an informal summit of EU leaders in Copenhagen, where the topic is set to feature high on the agenda.
“Russia is testing the EU and NATO, and our response must be firm, united and immediate. At today’s meeting, we agreed to move from, let’s say, discussions to concrete actions,” Andrius Kubilius, the European Commissioner for Defence, said at a press conference in Finland after the online talks.
Kubilius made it clear the drone wall would have a two-fold purpose: detection and intervention, with immediate priority put on the first.
“Definitely, we need to look into effective means of how to destroy,” he said.
The drone wall would be one of three pillars of a broader “Eastern Flank Watch”, with the other two being a ground wall and a maritime wall, he explained.
It is unclear how long it will take for the project to be realised on the ground. Kubiliuis spoke of one year based on the analysis of experts, although he cautioned that he was not convinced by the estimation. The Commission intends to work with member states, industry representatives and Ukraine to develop a more specific roadmap.
“It’s both technological concepts which are needed and very soon, but also conceptual background, how such a defence should be organised in the best way,” he said.
On high alert
Friday’s launch comes on the heels of a series of airspace violations that have put the entire continent on maximum alert.
The first incursion occurred in Poland two weeks ago, when 19 Russian drones flew over national territory and prompted a scramble to shoot them down. Then, in Romania, one Russian drone and, in Estonia, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets.
On Monday this week, three large drones were spotted at Copenhagen Airport, causing a total shutdown of operations for nearly four hours. On Wednesday, drone activity forced interruptions at Aalborg airport. Swedish media later reported a similarly mysterious sighting in the southern Karlskrona region.
So far, Denmark has been unable to identify the instigators. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she could not “rule out” Russian involvement, but authorities have not found any evidence pointing the finger at the Kremlin. Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen spoke of a “hybrid attack” part of a “systematic operation”, noting the drones seen at Aalborg had been launched locally.
The succession of episodes has raised uncomfortable questions about the bloc’s lack of preparedness to face down drone warfare, which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has elevated to a new dimension.
Poland, for example, resorted to multi-billion-dollar missiles to shoot down cheap drones, while Denmark admitted lacking a ground-based air defence system.
“There is no single capacity that will make this go away,” Lund Poulsen said.
Friday’s kick-off meeting focused on identifying material and financial gaps to determine what assets are already available for the wall and which elements are still missing.
Kubilius listed radars, acoustic sensors, signal jammers, interceptors and traditional artillery as some of the key capabilities needed to make it a reality.
“We need to understand what kind of systems we need to develop to be most effective,” he said. “We need to recognise that at the moment our effectiveness to fight drones was not at that level which we need to have.”
Another crucial question for the drone wall is its compatibility with NATO.
For years, the EU’s attempts to form a fully-fledged European Defence Union have been hamstrung by the Atlantic alliance, which claims exclusive competence on military affairs. But Russia’s war of aggression has rebalanced the scales. The EU has ventured deeper and deeper into defence policy, putting forward its largest programme to date, Readiness 2030, with a €150 billion envelope of low-interest loans.