About 19 Russian drones worth 10,000 euros each, audible, slow, vulnerable, and perfectly shootable from the ground with anti-aircraft cannons, crossed the border between Ukraine and Poland and entered the airspace of the country that spends the highest percentage of its GDP (4.1%) on Defense in the European Union. The common response of NATO to that incursion, even while on alert due to Russian maneuvers Zapad 2025 in Belarus, was disappointing for being ineffective and disproportionately expensive. In Ukraine, the long-distance drone shoot-down rates are around 70%, but Poland and its NATO partners did not even reach 25%.
Approaching the fourth year of the invasion of the neighboring country, attacked by swarms of hundreds of drones every night, the only way for the Alliance to bring down these devices, perhaps all simple plywood and foam decoys, was to launch the F-35, possibly the most advanced fifth-generation fighter, to shoot down only "three or four". According to Prime Minister Donald Tusk, out of the 19 drones, four were shot down with AIM-120 Amraam missiles, each costing a million euros. In other words, they used a projectile 100 times more expensive than the drone itself.
This Saturday, in the second incident of this kind, a Russian drone flew over Romania for 50 minutes without any of the F-16s searching for it being able to shoot it down. Trump said on Friday that he was not "going to defend anyone," and instead of issuing an ultimatum to Russia, he placed it on his NATO partners to stop buying Russian oil, a poisoned condition that he knows is impossible due to Hungary's pro-Russian policy under Orban. In other words, Putin's incursions have been cost-free, guaranteeing new and increasingly numerous movements soon.
Hasn't anyone learned anything? How is it possible that a military alliance the size and budget of NATO has not prepared a border to contain an incursion of drones that often roam, night after night, just a few tens of kilometers from it?
There is an even more disturbing question: What if Russia launches an attack with 800 Shahed drones similar to those launched in Ukraine but over Polish, Baltic, or Scandinavian cities? And what would happen if they repeat that same attack of 800 devices night after night, just as they do over Kiev, Odessa, or Kharkiv? NATO is defenseless due to its lack of vision. "We are not prepared for this," said a senior German official to Reuters this week. Analyst Nico Lange, who has been following the entire Ukraine-Russia invasion from the beginning, states: "Due to our lack of consistent and firm response, Russia will regularly violate the airspace of NATO countries with drones. Due to our lack of clarity, Putin is creating a gray zone."
But Ukraine does not use its aircraft to shoot down drones. Not even the Patriot, Nasams, or Iris-T missile batteries, which are used more to shoot down all kinds of Russian missiles, both cruise and ballistic. And for the same reason: the projectiles of these anti-aircraft batteries are expensive and scarce and cannot be wasted on drones. However, Ukraine has a mobile and layered defense that includes Gepard anti-aircraft cannons (already retired from service in Germany), machine guns of various calibers mounted on pickup trucks, Stinger missiles launched from the shoulder (from the Cold War era), and electronic warfare devices designed to confuse the GPS of these drones in flight to divert them from their targets. With all these elements, Ukraine's shoot-down rate ranges from 70% to 90%, depending on the scale of the attack or the route.
Faced with NATO's failure in the first real clash over Polish airspace, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has sent a few Polish instructors to receive training from Ukrainian drone hunters, the top experts, albeit reluctantly. A Spanish soldier who participated in the training of Ukrainian officers in Spain told this reporter: "The reality is that they should be the ones teaching us."
This week, the British army boasted on social media about the quality of its assault troops with images showing a Challenger 2 tank advancing through a training ground with a group of soldiers behind, protecting themselves from fire and shooting back. In the war in Ukraine, those Royal Marines would not have lasted five minutes, just like the tank, which would have been set ablaze by being hit by several FPV drones worth about 1,500 euros each. After four years of war, there is not a single vehicle in Europe equipped with anti-drone defenses and an active inhibitor, what they call "barbecues" in Ukraine, which are like a second skin on the tank that causes the explosive to impact outside the armor and not penetrate inside. How is it possible that NATO has not updated all vehicles for modern warfare? How can soldiers be advanced in closed groups considering that a single drone can take out four or five in the same attack?
In a recent report from the Rusi think tank, titled NATO's Capabilities in a Potential Conflict with Russia in 2025, it is stated: "The Alliance needs to significantly accelerate the acquisition and deployment of anti-drone systems, as the proliferation of cheap devices by Russia has already altered the balance, with persistent attacks and saturation phenomena."
Analyst Stefan Fürst publishes an article titled Reviving Tanks' Manoeuvrability on Modern Battlefields, where he reviews the role of the Alliance's armored vehicles in current warfare: "Drones challenge tanks' ability to maneuver on the battlefield and pose a serious threat to them, as protection systems have not been adequately improved."
Despite witnessing the transformation of warfare from the early stages of mechanized invasion to this increasingly robotized conflict, none of NATO's partners have a production of interceptor drones worthy of the name. In fact, this week, several states have turned to Ukrainian companies, with huge waiting lists to supply their own army, not only to acquire a certain number of drones but to participate in long-term production. Now there is a rush, and the same goes for bomb shelters, alert applications, and audible sirens in villages. War was nearby, and no one thought it would come.