Europe wants to build a drone wall to protect its eastern flank from Russia. Is it feasible?

European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen said in her September 10 State of the Union address that Europe “must heed the call” of the Baltic states to “build a drone wall”.

“This is not an abstract ambition, it is the bedrock of credible defence,” she said earlier this month. 

Since then, EU defence commissioner Andrius Kubilius told Reuters last week that he plans to call together the EU’s defence ministers for talks on creating a “drone wall” along the EU’s eastern border after Russian drones were shot down over Polish airspace. 

Both Von Der Leyen and Kubilius are referring to the Baltic Drone Wall, a cooperative effort between Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to strengthen the EU and NATO’s eastern border. 

Two companies of at least eight involved with the project say parts of the drone wall technology are already deployed but they are waiting to see whether other European governments will want to integrate their technology into their defence systems. 

“What we are expecting [from Kubilius’ meeting] … is confirmation that this problem is serious and they want to act,” said Jaanus Tamm, president and CEO of Estonian defence company DefSecIntel. 

“What are the next steps for the actions? Not just ‘let’s meet again and … make another declaration, but [we’re hoping for] … a very concrete plan,” he told Euronews Next. 

What do we know about the ‘Drone Wall’ project?

At the heart of the drone wall project is a “multilayered drone defence system” called Eirshield, an anti-drone platform developed through a joint partnership between DefSecIntel and Latvian company Origin Robotics. 

It uses radars, cameras, radio frequency detectors, the drone’s direction and its threat level to decide whether a hostile drone should have its signal jammed or blocked or whether it should be hit with another drone, Tamm said. 

Agris Kipurs, co-founder and CEO of Origin Robots, said the system is “fully automatic,” making the strikes possible with the help of artificial intelligence (AI)  so there’s “no flying required,” meaning everything from drone detection to interception is automated.  

Eirshield is designed to work on “fast-flying unmanned” targets carrying warheads that can fly upwards of 200 kilometres per hour, Kipurs said. The system will also have some parts that are portable, he added. 

The system can be equipped with several types of drones, including some that DefSecIntel has already developed, which Tamm said is key to responding to the capacities of different types of drones. 

The cost-per-use of the Eirshield system is in the “tens of thousands” of euros, Kipurs said, compared to the “couple of millions” that older, conventional air strike systems use. 

“The systems which are currently in place were designed for a lot more expensive threats [such as ] neutralising missiles and manned aviation,” Kipurs said. “It was not designed to intercept … strike drones … that threat is very new, so we are just now designing for it”. 

Tamm said the system has been deployed in Ukraine and is equipped there with a “third-party gun system” that lets Ukrainian forces hit low-flying drones like Shahed drones. 

Kipurs said there are planned demonstrations of the system in the coming weeks but could not specify which governments were interested in the drone wall technology for security reasons. 

Technology to be adapted to NATO standards

Tamm said there will likely have to be some changes to the Eirshield system used in Ukraine to meet NATO standards and for “peacetime” in the Baltics. 

“You can imagine that when you have an active war going on, everything [that] is flying is bad so [the targets identified by the system] are most likely hostile,” Tamm said.

“In peacetime, you have to be sure that what’s coming … is actually a bad drone and you need to track it quite carefully”. 

Some of these peacetime changes could include equipping the system to take down drones with a net or using a small drone to hit the incoming drone without making it explode, he added. 

Kipurs said it’s up to national militaries to decide what the tactics are and what combination of detection and interception they want to use. 

When the drone wall is up and running, Tamm said it will not replace more traditional types of air defence systems, like other anti-missile systems. 

Euronews Next reached out to the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian governments to find out how the drones will be used by their militaries but did not receive an immediate reply. 

Drone wall funding denied by Commission in August

There’s renewed interest now in the drone wall project, but as recently as last month, the EU Commission rejected a drone wall funding proposal from Estonia and Lithuania worth €12 million. 

Euronews Next reached out to the Commission to find out why the initial project funding was rejected but did not receive an immediate reply. 

Kipurs implied the drone wall project wasn’t an exact match for what the Commission was looking to fund at the time. 

Still, all three national governments dedicated part of their national budgets to the drone wall. 

In Estonia, the government has already allocated €12 million over the next three years to the drone wall programme that will be built by various national defence companies and others from neighbouring Latvia and Lithuania. 

Latvia awarded €10 million in three research contracts to Origin Robotics and other defence cluster members, SAF Tehnika and Frankenburg Technologies for counter-drone solutions. 

Lithuanian officials told local media they had previously received €11 million from the EU to buy drones, with 3 million of those funds dedicated to anti-drone equipment.