EU’s ‘drone wall’ on its eastern flank could be ready within a year

EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius has claimed that the planned “drone wall” on the bloc’s eastern flank could be ready within a year.

The commissioner stated that they could significantly improve their drone detection capabilities within a year, but developing a complete network on land and sea capable of tracking and destroying targets would take much longer.

Following a series of recent Russian violations of EU countries’ airspace, the “drone wall” concept has rapidly gained traction, with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen making it one of her main announcements in her State of the European Union address in September.

“We need to understand that we lack the capacity to detect drones. We may have good capabilities for detecting fighter jets and missiles, but drones have unique characteristics; they fly very low and are small,” Kubilius said at the launch event for Euractiv’s daily defense newsletter, FIREPOWER.

Kubilius said the first step is to acquire detection systems “quickly,” and that this is possible.

Experts say it could take “about a year” for such a system to be ready to prevent Russian attacks and “provocations.”

Kubilius added that Europe should follow the example of the Ukrainian military, which uses acoustic sensors to detect drones that do not appear on their radars.

Lasers are another option for shooting down drones at a minimal cost, he said. During the question-and-answer session at the event, Kubilius noted that given the drone attacks on Norway and Denmark on Monday night, such a defense network must also cover the bloc’s extensive maritime borders.

Investigations into these recent attacks have not yet identified the perpetrator, with Danish police only stating that it was likely carried out by a “competent actor.”

Despite this, Copenhagen has been added to the Commission’s call list, along with the eastern border countries to be consulted on the drone defense plan.

The commissioner said that a suitable detection system could be established quite quickly, “within about a year,” but developing a system that can track and destroy targets on the ground would take much longer.

Speaking at the event, Robert de Groot, the European Investment Bank’s vice-president for defense and security, said there are discussions about prioritizing financing for the bloc’s eastern countries.

He stated that it is important to ensure cash flow for building military bases and infrastructure and for increasing the mobility of tanks and troops.

“We need to move materials from one end of Europe to the other, mostly from west to east, but also from north to south,” de Groot emphasized.