NATO’s first battle with Russian drones inside its own borders puts alliance on defensive

LONDON AP For more than three years Ukraine has waged an almost nightly battle against Russian attack drones NATO on Wednesday got a taste of that fight Polish agents disclosed they detected violations of their airspace prompting a million-dollar response as fighter jets were scrambled and Patriot air defense systems placed on alert Up to four drones were shot down with the help of NATO allies The incursion proved NATO s vulnerability to drone warfare Russian officers reported they didn t target Poland and Belarus a close ally announced certain of the drones lost their syllabus because they were jammed Nonetheless several European leaders and experts mentioned Poland was deliberately targeted If one or two drones crossed into Polish airspace it could have been a technical malfunction but it defies imagination that it could have been accidental when there were explained Poland s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski While proving intent is tough to have several to lose their way is starting to look rather deliberate agreed Thomas Withington an expert in electronic warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London A goal he suggested could have been to test NATO s reaction and ability to respond to drones Confusion and suspicion Since January Russia has fired at least attack drones at Ukraine according to an Associated Press analysis of figures from the Ukrainian air force Polish airspace has been violated multiple times since the beginning of Russia s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February Fragments from Ukrainian missiles killed two people in Poland in while drones have strayed into Poland Romana and Moldova as well as the Baltic states of Latvia Lithuania and Estonia But until Wednesday no NATO country had sustained multiple incursions into its airspace It was the first time NATO airpower was engaged against enemy targets inside a NATO country Drone fragments were identified about kilometers miles into Polish territory deeper than any previous incursion Much remains unclear and for now NATO is cautious We do not yet know if this was an intentional act or an unintentional act U S Gen Alexus Grynkewich NATO s supreme allied commander Europe mentioned Thursday He went on I would not be able to tell you with any confidence in the present day that it was drones or that it was We just have to get into the technical details to figure that out to debrief the crews that were up see what they saw et cetera It s hard without hard evidence to say if Moscow really intended to fly the drones into Poland commented Ash Alexander-Cooper a former specialist military commander and vice president at Dedrone which produces device to detect and neutralize drone threats But based on what is known about Russian drones and how they respond to electronic warfare the experts who spoke to AP mentioned it was highly doable the incursions were deliberate Electronic warfare There are two key strategies to neutralize majority of drones either shoot them down or hit them with electronic signals interference Jamming and spoofing are the main approaches to do that Jamming severs the connection the drone has with a satellite navigation system whereas spoofing tricks the drone into thinking it is somewhere else If the drone were jammed either by Ukraine or Poland it would either land or fly back toward its point of origin in Russia or Belarus disclosed Withington If it were spoofed it could fly off program crash or land If the drone were spoofed trying to jam it could literally make the challenge worse commented Alexander-Cooper Jamming a drone normally sends it home but Russia is now offerings particular drones so that their home is truly their target If satellite communications are cut the drones continue toward their targets Military drones also have inertial navigation units which use previous position fixes and gyroscopes to mark the drone s position relative to the earth so that it can keep flying without satellite or radio signals In that episode the drones could only have penetrated deep into Polish airspace if Russia had given them a targeted mission declared Withington Million-dollar jets cheap drones Russian attack drones known as Shaheds are hard to disrupt electronically Alexander-Cooper declared which is why NATO scrambled jets to take them down F- and F- fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters were deployed as well as Soviet-designed MI- and MI- helicopters the Polish Defense Ministry announced German Patriot missile defense systems in Poland were also placed on alert The response Alexander-Cooper suggested was economically disproportionate to the threat Firing million-dollar missiles is not an economical model that can be sustained against drones that cost tens of thousands of dollars he revealed Gen Wies aw Kuku a General Commander of the Polish Armed Forces stated Polish television the cost was beside the point What matters is the value of what this drone can destroy If it s a Polish life it has no price he noted If faced with drone swarms like those in Ukraine there would not be enough aircraft within the NATO fleet with enough missiles or enough interceptors to do the job revealed Alexander-Cooper It would also require putting fighter jet pilots who are in limited supply and expensive to train in harm s way he mentioned Drone innovation Both Russia and Ukraine have rapidly developed new drones equipment and tactics Since Russia has mixed decoy drones with no payload among armed Shaheds in order to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses which cannot easily distinguish between the two Russia also has the ability to connect a chain of drones together to bounce a signal to extend another drone s range mentioned Fabian Hinz at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London In June Ukraine used drones flown from trucks to strike million-dollar Russian warplanes deep inside the country during Operation Spiderweb Ukraine s defense facility revealed it used artificial intelligence to partly pilot the drones along a planned journey in the event they lost signal On the front lines both Russia and Ukraine use fiber optic drones for surveillance and strikes They are impossible to interfere with electronically as they are connected to the operator by a long thin fiber optic cable NATO versus drones Each night Ukraine shoots down most of Russian attack drones according to material from its air force but even one or two can do serious damage After Wednesday s incursion Polish officials disclosed drone fragments were uncovered at locations This could indicate that several drones escaped The fact that several of the drones were able to fly so far into Polish airspace is an indication that perhaps somewhere the detection capability was lacking revealed Withington Current NATO air defenses are largely set up to detect and neutralize fast-moving targets like cruise and ballistic missiles commented Withington They are not he reported designed to track small objects often made from fiberglass or plastic which don t reflect radar waves in the same way as a metal missile Sikorski stated Wednesday Poland needed a drone wall and new techniques to repel a mass attack Nobody was killed during the circumstance and it would therefore be wrong to suggest NATO s response was a failure explained Withington But he reported it could have been far more serious My concern is next time it might be Associated Press journalists Jamey Keaten in Geneva Switzerland Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw Poland and Lydia Doye in London contributed to this account Source