LONDON — Poland, Finland, and Baltic nations are racing against time to operationalize a multi-layered initiative aimed at fortifying their borders against potential Russian drone threats, but have faced political delays and logistical challenges.
The ambitious project, dubbed the “Baltic Drone Wall,” was introduced by the Estonian Defense Industry Cluster earlier this year and aims to bolster hundreds of kilometers of NATO’s eastern borders by combining a wide-range of countermeasures.
Based on current estimates, it is expected to be completed by 2027, which Estonian defense companies argue is too far in the future, citing a significant uptick in the number of incidents of Russian drones violating NATO countries’ airspace in attacks during attacks on Ukraine.
“The project has been too slow to launch from a political standpoint – we would’ve liked for it to be ready to go by next summer as we’ve seen an increase in the number of drone incidents and the systems required are ready,” Getter Oper, chief of strategy and communications at the Estonian firm DefSecIntel, said a the DSEI defense trade show here.
The manufacturer is one of the dozen of companies involved in the initiative, which will stitch together various systems that the respective countries have sent and battle-tested in Ukraine.
The European Union is eying a similar initiative, presumably on a larger scale. This week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also announced the creation of a drone alliance with Ukraine, deepening cooperation with the war-torn country on all things unmanned.
The most recent drone incursion took place this week in Poland, where allied fighter jets were scrambled when over a dozen Russian drones entered Polish airspace. Several were shot down, the Polish military said.
Oper said the envisioned Baltic drone wall’s layered sensor and interception network could have offered faster, cheaper and more effective responses by detecting threats earlier and streamlining decision-making on countermeasures.
But so far, the project is a logical and affordable alternative only on paper. Companies also acknowledge the level of difficulty that comes with fully securing hundreds of territory bordering Russia against potential drone incursions.
“A project of this size, for example, will require tens of thousands of sensors to be placed alongside our territories – what we are facing is not a problem of producing these quantities, as that is achievable, it is more so how do we share and integrate all the information between all of the systems involved?” Leet Rauno Lember, chief operating officer of Marduk Technologies, said.
The Estonia-based company is a key contributor to the project, in part developing and testing its electro-optical counter-drone system, the Marduk Shark, which can detect and target hostile drones.
Lember added that another interrogation point regards who would be responsible for actually destroying incoming drones, depending on the different altitudes at which they fly. For example, as things stand, if an adversary drone is detected flying at altitudes of 300 meters, the Estonian Air Force is required to take over.
The envisioned wall is slated to include at least five layers composed in part of acoustic detection sensors, mobile camera systems, drone interceptors and effectors, radars, and jammers —feeding data into a central system for real-time threat awareness.
Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. She covers a wide range of topics related to military procurement and international security, and specializes in reporting on the aviation sector. She is based in Milan, Italy.