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Over the past month, eyes across Europe have been trained on the sky.

On Sep. 10, about 20 Gerbera surveillance drones, believed to have been launched from Russia, crossed into Polish airspace. Some were shot down by NATO fighter jets, others crashed after running out of steam. Four days later, another errant drone was detected and tracked, this time over Romania, before it turned around and returned to Ukraine. The following week, three Russian fighter jets entered Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland where they remained for 12 minutes before being intercepted by NATO aircraft. The three incidents, coming in quick succession, have sparked a vigorous debate about how Europe’s frontline states and the NATO alliance more generally should respond to Russia’s perceived provocations.

For some, the biggest risk is under-reacting. According to these accounts, Russia’s violations of its neighbors’ airspace are purposeful tests of NATO’s resolve and the first step on Moscow’s planned road to war with Europe. The alliance must, therefore, respond credibly and decisively, drawing a clear redline that Russia hesitates to cross in the future.

Others see recent airspace violations as little more than harassment, part of Russia’s ongoing hybrid campaign intended to punish Europe for its continued economic and military support of Ukraine. For this group, the costs of over-reacting far exceed the risks of responding too softly. These observers warn that radical moves such as establishing a no-fly zone over western Ukraine or participating directly in the defense of Ukraine’s skies could cause the very outcome they seek to avoid — a war with Russia — because they would thrust NATO forces into direct engagement with Russian soldiers and aircraft.

Both camps share at least one fear, however: Russian drones and aircraft entering NATO territory — intentionally or accidentally — may cause damage or lead to misunderstandings that trigger retaliation and rapid escalation to a military conflict between NATO and Russia. Given the catastrophic consequences of such a conflict, alleviating this threat is a worthwhile and important goal.

NATO already has the weapons systems and protocols in place to respond to breaches of its airspace by manned aircraft, which have been occurring frequently since well before 2022. These were on display in Estonia last month. There may be questions about rules of engagement — that is, when NATO forces (or frontline states) should shoot down an adversary’s fighter jets — but there are no capability gaps to address when it comes to this kind of challenge.

Recent Russian drone activities have, however, revealed a gap in Europe’s defenses. Addressing this gap will require that European states invest rapidly and strategically in counter-drone capabilities beyond fighter aircraft and conventional air defense like Patriot systems. But it will not require major changes in posture that would put NATO forces in Ukraine or demand expensive investments in advanced technologies. Instead, Europe can adequately meet the challenges posed by a Russian hybrid drone campaign, should it continue, by defending from within their own borders and focusing their investment on inexpensive counter-drone technologies to build layered protection. Working to increase regional coordination on a mini-lateral basis among frontline states, especially in sensing and detecting drones near their shared borders, would augment these efforts. If successful, this approach would fall short of the so-called drone wall that more ambitious European leaders have proposed, but it would offer Europe a sustainable counter-drone strategy.

Evaluating the Threat

The choice of an appropriate response to drone activity along NATO’s border depends on how Europe and the United States interpret Russian intentions.

Though drone sightings in Norway, Denmark, and Germany have widened the perceived threat (the source of these drones remains unknown), states on NATO’s eastern edge like Poland, Romania, and the Baltics have been most unnerved by recent air incursions. Already fearful of future Russian military aggression, these states view breaches of their airspace as confirmation of Moscow’s hostile intentions. The day after drones crossed into his country, for example, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that this was “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II.”

This interpretation is shared by analysts and government officials on both sides of the Atlantic. They describe drone incidents as evidence of Russia “probing, trying to watch and see how”      quickly NATO forces react. The Institute for the Study of War went so far as to assert that Russia had “entered phase zero” of its war against Europe. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz similarly warned that Europe was “not at war… but no longer at peace” with Russia.

Not everyone reacted with such concern, however. U.S. President Donald Trump’s response was more muted: “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones?” he posted on his Truth Social platform. In later interviews he seemed open to the possibility that the incident had been unintentional, due to targeting errors or some other malfunction, though he also indicated support for efforts to shoot down Russian drones or aircraft that found their way into NATO airspace in the future.

The true implications of Russia’s drone activity along NATO’s eastern flank are likely somewhere between the two extremes. Poland and Romania, and their European neighbors, have legitimate security concerns stemming from violations of their airspace. They may fear that drones crossing their borders, even if unarmed, will cause civilian casualties or damage to critical infrastructure. They may worry that surveillance drones are collecting intelligence information that could inform future attacks.

But these threats should not be inflated or overestimated. September’s drone incidents are not unique or unprecedented. Since 2022, drones, missiles, and other debris have landed in Poland and Romania several dozen times. To be sure, the recent incursion into Poland far exceeded previous events in terms of the total number of drones and distance the drones traveled inside Polish territory. But more surprising than this event or that in Romania days later is that similar incursions have not been much more common since 2022. It would be easy for many more errant missiles and drones to end up beyond Ukraine and inside NATO territory. Thus, rather than seeking escalation with the West, it seems that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been careful to avoid mistakes and misunderstandings that might trigger direct engagement between Russia and NATO countries. And surely, if Putin were really trying to test NATO’s defenses or prepare for a future war with Europe, he could do better than a couple dozen unarmed surveillance drones in Poland, a single drone flown briefly over Romania, or three Russian fighters in Estonian airspace.

Instead of a prelude to war, recent Russian drone provocations are better interpreted as a continuation of the more concerted hybrid campaign that Moscow has been waging against Europe since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Understanding that European support has allowed Ukraine to stay in the fight, Moscow has consistently acted to impose costs on European capitals with sabotage, cyber attacks, and other tactics below the threshold of conventional war, reminders that their indirect involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian War comes with consequences. Recent air incursions are simply more of the same.

The timing of the September incidents is likely not an accident, however. After months of European posturing and tough talk about “reassurance forces,” Russia may also have hoped to make glaringly evident the chasm between Europe’s resolved rhetoric and its much weaker military reality. In this, Putin was at least partly successful. Though NATO aircraft successfully shot down several Russian drones in Poland, the ensuing European disagreement and anxiety about how to respond made Moscow’s point about Europe’s continuing military failings.

Missing the Mark

Putin joked in his remarks at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club that Russia was done targeting Europe with drones for now, but this is almost certainly not the case. Whether by accident or as a form of signaling, the Kremlin is likely to continue to use drones to irritate neighbors so long as the war continues. And why not? The tactic is low cost and has worked well so far. Europe will, therefore, need to act quickly and decisively to decide how it will protect against such incidents in the future.

NATO’s initial reaction has been criticized as both insufficient and ill-suited to the threat at hand. Soon after the Russian drones landed in Polish territory, the alliance established Operation Eastern Sentry, comprising a small number of additional air assets from European countries. Not only is this response underwhelming in its size and scope, but using advanced fighter jets and expensive precision-guided missiles to shoot down $10,000 drones is hardly an efficient or sustainable strategy.

Many in Europe and the United States have advocated for more far-reaching steps. Poland’s foreign minister, for instance, called for a NATO-backed no-fly zone to be implemented over Ukraine to prevent drones and missiles from passing across Ukraine and into Europe. As an alternative, others have suggested that NATO forces in Poland and Romania directly participate in Ukraine’s defense of its skies, firing air defense interceptors from NATO territory to take down Russian missiles bound for Europe.

Neither of these proposals is entirely new. Both were floated by Ukraine and its backers under the Biden administration but were rebuffed — with good reason. A NATO-led no-fly zone over western Ukraine could, after all, amount to war with Russia with NATO aircraft actively intercepting missiles over Ukrainian territory and preparing in principle to shoot down Russian fighter jets if they venture into restricted airspace (at present Russian aircraft launch their missiles from outside Ukraine). The risks of dangerous escalation would be high, much more so than when Turkey targeted a Russian Su-24 in Turkish airspace in 2015, as a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be outside NATO territory in the context of a war.

As a response to recent air incursions, establishing a no-fly zone suffers from two additional problems. First, it is not clear such an approach would be credible. Europe has proven itself unwilling to directly confront Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, so it is hard to believe it is now ready to shoot Russian planes out of the sky or put its own fighters at risk of being targeted by Russian anti-aircraft fire. Second, it would seem to worsen rather than improve Europe’s security situation by increasing the potential for direct conflict with Moscow.

A plan to use air defense systems and anti-aircraft missiles based in NATO territory to intercept Russian missiles and drones before they reach the borders of countries like Poland and Romania is no more credible or realistic. It is true that this is effectively what the United States did for Israel during the 12-day war in June 2025, but U.S. policymakers have been clear that they see Ukraine and Israel as two very different situations warranting different levels of commitment. This is unlikely to change, especially since the U.S. interests at stake in the Russo–Ukraine War have not evolved. Even though in this scenario NATO forces would not be operating inside Ukraine’s borders, actively participating in Ukraine’s air defense would still make NATO countries direct parties to the current conflict with all the same credibility concerns and escalation risks of the no-fly zone. This plan would also make NATO frontline states a more likely target for Russian missiles, if only to take out air defense now involved in the war, and would mortgage NATO’s future security, using scarce air defense resources against missiles and drones that pose little threat to NATO territory.

Another alternative, suggested in these pages by Robert Hamilton, would have NATO enhance the security of its airspace by giving Ukraine the resources required to better defend its own skies. If Ukraine does a better job of downing Russian drones and missiles, the logic goes, fewer will make it to nearby NATO member states. Hamilton focuses specifically on Patriot air defense systems and advocates for putting NATO personnel on the ground in Ukraine to help operate those systems or to observe.

This plan has some merit. Ukraine does need more air defense systems, but right now, Ukraine’s biggest constraint is not the systems themselves, but rather interceptor missiles. Here, there is a global shortage that even willing Western partners are struggling to address. It also is not clear that Patriot systems are what Ukraine needs most urgently to counter the drone threat. Patriots are among the most powerful air defense systems in the world, but their biggest advantage is their ability to intercept ballistic missiles. Other air defense systems, including the National Advanced Surface-to-Air System and European-made SAMP/T and IRIS-T systems, are just as effective when it comes to drones. Technologies and systems developed explicitly for countering drones are even better and much cheaper.

Hamilton’s proposal to put NATO personnel inside Ukraine to operate new air defense systems is more problematic because it would make them direct combatants in the war. Putin has made clear that Russia will treat soldiers from NATO countries inside Ukraine as legitimate targets. Hamilton suggests that the risk to NATO forces would be low given that Russia has not destroyed any Patriot systems since they arrived in Ukraine, at least according to publicly available information. However, we do know that at least one system was damaged by a Russian missile and there have been scattered reports of other similar incidents. If Russia can damage Patriots, they can kill the operators. There is no reason to now put NATO personnel in Ukraine, especially since Ukrainian soldiers have proven their skill in operating air defense systems of all kinds with high rates of success.

A final proposal for a so-called drone wall, supported by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and E.U. President Ursula von der Leyen, moves closer to reality but is likely economically and technologically out of reach. The drone wall would not actually be a wall, of course, but a network of radars and sensors linked to mobile air defense units and other counter-drone systems integrated across NATO’s frontline.

The plan sounds good in theory but would face obstacles in practice. Many of the technologies involved are not fully mature, and most are expensive. Given their limited defense budgets, the large expenditures needed for such a project may not make sense — especially given the modest threat and cheap cost of Russian drones. There is also always the risk that the required technologies fail. The timeline to set up such a network may also be too long to address European countries’ near-term needs, leaving them reliant on their insufficient and inefficient systems for an extended period.

Cost-Effective Countermeasures

Russian drone activity has revealed a gap in Europe’s defenses. But closing that gap does not have to be expensive or require risky strategic moves.

Commercial counter-drone technologies have been slower to develop than those for drones themselves, but innovations developed on the battlefield in Ukraine and Israel are beginning to transform this landscape. Europe does not have to start from scratch but can make use of systems already in existence, replicating Ukraine’s layered drone defense strategy and supplementing it with more advanced weapons as they become more widely available. This is an appropriate approach even if recent Russian drone incursions turn out to be unintentional, as some continue to speculate.

For starters, NATO’s frontline states (and the rest of Europe too) can rely on passive defenses, such as electronic jamming and hacking, while also hardening critical infrastructure and strategic military assets to reduce their vulnerability. The cost of these passive measures is low, and though they will not provide complete defenses on their own, they can be adopted and put in place quickly.

For fiber optic and more advanced drones, kinetic countermeasures will be needed. Ukraine has led the development of cheap counter-drone technologies of this sort and has already proven that they can be mass produced at reasonable cost. For example, Ukraine has developed inexpensive counter-drone rifles and rifle rounds that have proven very effective. Each rifle costs just $12,000. More advanced versions can cost significantly more, but Europe can likely rely on cheap and moderately priced ones for most of its needs. Ukraine has also had success in developing interceptors that can destroy armed Shahed-style drones before they reach their targets. Such interceptors can cost as little as a few hundred dollars, with more advanced models running in the low thousands of dollars — still much less than a single $4 million Patriot missile.

Ukraine has been able to rapidly scale the production of interceptors, counter-drone rifles, and other types of low-altitude kinetic weapons. Europe can and should do the same to stockpile large numbers of these weapons. European countries can partner with Ukraine on joint ventures to ramp up their capabilities more quickly and at lower cost. Funding to help Ukraine increase its own production capacity for counter-drone systems could simultaneously support Ukraine’s air defense campaign and offer Europe another source of weapons and innovation.

More advanced technologies could also offer Europe some opportunities. For instance, recent developments in laser-based and directed energy weapons hold promise for countering the threat posed by drones. The U.S. military is currently experimenting with laser-based counter-drone systems, including the Blue Halo Locust. Israel too recently announced that it had developed a new advanced laser-based system. However, these systems are new and still quite expensive to produce (though their operational cost is low). As laser-based counter-drone systems become more widely used in Ukraine and elsewhere, their cost is likely to decrease, making them more accessible. European states should seek joint ventures with foreign defense companies already active in this area, so they can reap benefits as these technologies develop.

To manage the layers of their counter-drone defenses, European states will also need command and control systems, preferably those that can be integrated across national borders. New AI-powered systems offer many benefits including faster detection and predictive analytics to improve the targeting of countermeasures. Ukraine has already demonstrated the successful use of simple versions of some of these systems on the battlefield.

Way Ahead

Europe is right to be concerned about deficiencies in its ability to defend its territory from drones, but the risks of over-reacting to Russian activities along the NATO border are far greater than that of doing too little. Recent drone incidents have surely been irritating for affected states, but they are far from signals that Moscow is preparing for war and the threat they pose is modest at best. Responding to these incursions with moves that increase the potential for or guarantee direct engagement with Russia, however, would create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If NATO’s goal is preventing war, a defensive counter-drone posture inside its own territory is surely enough.

Jennifer Kavanagh is director of military analysis and a senior fellow at Defense Priorities. She is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Image: ArmyInform via Wikimedia Commons