The Drone Wall

September has witnessed a profound rise in the intensity of Kremlin hybrid warfare against EU and NATO member states, setting off alarm bells with European leaders and among their publics. Moscow is using classical military means, such as incursions into Estonian airspace by manned military jets and violations of Polish and Romanian airspace with attack drones. But Russia is also increasingly turning to hybrid operations, such as the deployment of small, commercially available drones—most likely by intelligence or special forces operatives—to threaten traffic at key European airports, including Copenhagen’s. Russia has also launched cyberattacks against online air traffic infrastructure, as has happened at the Berlin-Brandenburg and Brussels-Zaventem airports. 

The goal of these attacks is to challenge and weaken social and political resilience in key European countries. They also test NATO’s resolve, unity, responses, and military capabilities. The Kremlin’s actions are clearly escalatory moves, but they do not signal an intention to instigate a larger conflict outside Ukraine. 

Russia is bogged down in Ukraine. As long as this remains the case, Moscow lacks the capability to directly challenge NATO, or even the EU, which also has a mutual defense clause. Even a moderately determined response by a few eastern flank states to a hostile act might allow Ukraine to liberate part of its lost territory and close the Baltic Sea to shipping. That would have far-reaching consequences for the Kremlin’s ability to finance its war effort since between 30% and 60% of its maritime crude oil exports pass through that body of water. 

Russian hybrid warfare, however, is meant to deter Western countries from continuing to provide meaningful assistance to Ukraine by exposing their vulnerabilities and raising the specter of being drawn into the conflict directly. In this situation, measures such as the “drone wall”, which demonstrate an ability to ensure security, become necessary for Western societal resilience and collective readiness to support Kyiv. But these measures are not strategic responses to Russian hybrid warfare, particularly because they do not counter it. Rather, they fulfill the underlying logic of the Russian strategy. These are measures which, although necessary, divert financial and military resources away from Ukraine, which remains the most efficient use of resources for containing and deterring Russia. 

So, how should the EU and European NATO member states respond in the current situation? They should counter Kremlin strategy, not its tactical-level moves, by taking steps that may alter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cost-benefit calculation. 

A coalition of countries, ideally, but not necessarily, the coalition of the willing, should declare that every Russian escalatory move—whether an airspace violation, cyberattack, or other perceived form of hybrid warfare—will trigger the immediate deployment of additional military hardware with long-range strike capabilities, in addition to military aid already committed to Ukraine. These countries must then follow through on this commitment by delivering more SCALP-EG/Storm Shadow air-to-ground missiles and increasing financial support for Ukrainian production of long-range strike weapons such as Neptune missiles and attack drones. Romania has already announced that it will jointly develop and produce Neptune missiles with Ukraine, and EU and NATO member states should follow suit by offering to establish joint ventures that produce long-range strike weapons for Ukraine in their own countries. 

In addition, if German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is truly contemplating delivering Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine (he said in May that it is “within the limits of possible”), the current situation offers him an ideal opportunity to do so at little domestic political cost. He can draw a red line for the Kremlin: More hybrid attacks against German or allied assets or territory will result in the immediate delivery of these weapons. With that move, he would create a tit-for-tat dynamic aimed at constraining the Kremlin’s escalatory moves by making clear their cost. And, crucially, he must follow through on his warning. 

Two EU and NATO member states have a final card to play, and it is one with significant impact. Denmark and Sweden could declare that, to ensure safety in the Öresund strait, only oil tankers with valid insurance that meet set environmental standards may transit the waterway between the two countries. They could make piloting through the strait mandatory and request the establishment of an EU naval mission, following the Atalanta blueprint, to ensure tankers’ compliance and to detain violators. This would essentially ban Russia’s “shadow fleet” from the strait and choke Russian oil exports through the Baltic Sea, all while conforming with international law. Such moves cannot, therefore, be legally interpreted as infringements of freedom of navigation. And since much of the “shadow fleet” does not sail under the Russian flag, the Kremlin could not straightforwardly frame it as an act of war. 

EU and NATO member states must address Russian hybrid warfare and its underlying strategy. Instead of prioritizing resources for mainly symbolic defense measures, these countries need to deter the Kremlin by pursuing policies that can impose hefty costs on it. Strengthening Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities and undercutting Moscow’s maritime oil exports through the Baltic Sea can do that. The “drone wall”, in contrast, exists primarily to calm unsettled publics.