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Just before Eveline Buchatskiy left Kyiv last weekend, Russia unleashed nearly 600 drones and dozens of missiles against Ukraine, killing four people. Such bombardments have become an “everyday reality” in Ukraine, the managing partner of the D3 defence tech fund told the Resilience conference in London on Monday. But how, Buchatskiy asked, would London handle a similar attack?
Such terrors have been preying on the minds of Nato officials amid escalating tensions with Moscow and recent incursions into Polish and Danish airspace by drones, presumed to be Russian. In response, several Nato countries have been urgently redeploying air defence systems to central Europe. But, as the FT has reported, the Russians are becoming increasingly adept at evading even the best anti-missile systems.
Air defence shot to the top of the political agenda in Copenhagen this week with European leaders discussing the creation of a regional drone wall to help counter the multipronged Russian threat. “The idea of a hybrid war is to threaten us, to divide us, to destabilise us. To use drones one day, cyber attacks the next day, sabotage on the third day,” the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, told the FT.
An EU paper on the drone wall outlined the need to create “a multi-layered, deep zone of technologically advanced systems with interoperable anti-drone capabilities for detection, tracking and neutralisation”. But Ukraine’s experience shows how difficult it can be to protect the frontline and civilian infrastructure from drone attacks.
At the Resilience conference, Ukrainian officers said that 100,000 people (more than Britain’s full-time army) now contributed to the country’s air defences, spanning radar stations, aircrews, anti-missile batteries, electronic warfare experts and drone operators. Even so, the Russians continue to overwhelm them.
Given how cheap, elusive and lethal they are, drones have rapidly become the weapon of choice for Russia and Ukraine. And both sides have used them in devious ways. In June, the Ukrainians launched drones from trucks near Russian airfields to destroy bombers as far as 4,300km from the border. And the French are investigating whether the recent drone incursions in Denmark were launched from an oil tanker from Moscow’s “shadow fleet”.
Much human ingenuity and capital is now being invested in drone defences. Several of Europe’s defence primes, including Rheinmetall, Thales and BAE Systems, are developing increasingly sophisticated anti-drone systems. And, having previously avoided the defence sector like an oversown minefield, venture capital firms in North America and Europe are now rushing in enthusiastically as they spy big contracts. So far this year, VCs have invested $9.1bn in defence start-ups in Nato countries compared with $6.5bn for the whole of 2024, according to a Dealroom report. That has even led to warnings of a drone investment bubble.
Lorenz Meier, chief executive of the US defence tech start-up Auterion, foresees the day when increasingly autonomous swarms of drones will intercept intruders in the same way that squadrons of Spitfires were scrambled to shoot down Nazi bombers during the Battle of Britain. Auterion has won a $50mn Pentagon contract to supply 33,000 AI-guidance kits for Ukrainian drones. “You cannot build state-of-the-art technology without being successful in combat in Ukraine,” Meier tells me. “If you are not in that innovation cycle, you will be left behind very, very quickly.”
That speed of innovation is one of the most remarkable aspects of Ukrainian drone development, as I discovered in Kyiv earlier this year. But some Ukrainian start-ups lack the capital to scale production. Nato governments should do more to support them and draw on their expertise rather than just investing in their own primes.
Even after the war, Serhiy Skoryk, commercial director of the Ukrainian electronic warfare company Kvertus, predicts there will continue to be a big demand for anti-drone technology. He reckons Russia has some 40,000 drone operators, some of whom could become the hired hands of criminals or terrorists intent on drug smuggling, targeted assassinations or mass attacks. Once export restrictions are lifted, Ukrainian companies could have a “huge impact” in helping to counter such threats, Skoryk says.
The lesson from Ukraine is that drone technology has already changed the rules of war, and peace, forever. The stark truth is that drone defences will now require eternal vigilance, not just emergency investment.