The European Commission will work on technical and financial details to build a drone wall to protect Europe against Russia, after a series of airspace violations by Moscow’s warplanes and unmanned aerial vehicles.
“Today the frontline EU member states expressed their resolution in close coordination with NATO to work together to forge a united response against growing threats from Russia everywhere in Europe,” Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told POLITICO in a statement after a virtual meeting with eastern flank defense ministers.
“Our response must be firm, united, and immediate. The Eastern Flank Watch that was announced by the President [Ursula] von der Leyen, would benefit all of Europe,” the statement continues. “In order to make this project operational as soon as possible, we will need to take swift action at the political, technical, financial levels, and in mobilizing our industry.”
On Friday, the Commission gathered defense ministers from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. Hungary, Slovakia and the Danish Council presidency were also represented. In a separate meeting where NATO was present as an observer, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal briefed them on his country’s “battle-tested expertise.”
Participants agreed the drone wall should include detection, tracking and interception capabilities, the Commission said. Other assets should include ground-based defenses, such as anti-mobility systems, maritime security as well as space-based situational awareness.
In a bid to bring Southern European countries and those more distant from Russia on board, both the European Commission and front-line nations insisted that Russian drones posed a risk to the bloc as a whole, not only Central and Eastern Europe.
The drone incursions in Denmark — which the government says may be linked to Russia — show that “the threat is not limited to the eastern flank, that drones could be launched from a nearby ship or vessel,” Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
The drone wall will be on the agenda of next week’s informal EU leaders’ meeting in Copenhagen. The Commission will now come up with “a detailed technical roadmap with national experts” as well as “build a comprehensive EU financial toolbox to make this shield a reality.” The project could be funded by the €150 billion loans-for-weapons SAFE scheme and the €1.5 billion European Defence Industry Program (EDIP), but Brussels is also looking at other options.
Ukraine, which has more than three years of battlefield experience against Russian drones, is ready to participate and provide expertise, including by sending technical teams to train EU and NATO armed forces, Shmyhal said.
“Together with our allies, we will coordinate our counteraction to Russian provocations in the sky … We also discussed the participation of Ukrainian manufacturers in the project,” he added. Ukraine and the EU will sign a joint declaration in October.
The drone wall idea was first floated last year but picked up steam earlier this month during von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech amid a growing raft of suspected Russian incursions across NATO countries.
In the past month, UAVs have violated Polish, Romanian, Danish and Norwegian airspace; in the Polish case expensive missiles were used to shoot down at least three cheap Russian drones. The military alliance was forced to dispatch several fighter jets after three Russian MiG-31s aircraft loitered in Estonian airspace for 12 minutes. The incidents have highlighted the gaps in NATO arsenals.
On Wednesday night, Denmark again had to close two airports in reaction to a fresh incursion, with drones also spotted across military bases and the country’s oil and gas platforms in the North Sea. The Kremlin has denied any involvement.
While Kubilius previously said the drone wall could be operational in a year, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary-general and Danish prime minister, said that was “too slow.”
Speaking at an online press briefing Friday, he said: “We do have capabilities to intercept drones. So it’s a question of deploying them, it’s a question of purchasing them. It’s a question of investment. So that’s why I urge governments to really speed up.”
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