LONDON (AP) – For more than three years, Ukraine has fought almost every night against Russian attack drones. NATO on Wednesday got a taste of that fight.
Polish authorities said they detected 19 violations in the airspace, urging a million-dollar response as fighter jets were scrambled and patriot air defense systems are on guard. With the help of NATO allies, up to four drones were shot down.
The intrusion lasted several hours showed NATO’s vulnerability to drone warfare. Russian authorities said they were not targeting Poland, and their close ally, Belarus, has “lost their course” because some of the drones were clogged. Nevertheless, several European leaders and experts said Poland was deliberately targeted.
If one or two drones were to cross Polish airspace, it could have been a “technical malfunction,” but at age 19, it “denies the imagination that it could have been a coincidence,” said Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski.
While it is difficult to prove the intention, “it is beginning to appear quite intentional for a few people to lose their way,” agreed Thomas Wysington, an electronic warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
He suggested that the goal he suggested might have been to test NATO’s responses and ability to respond to drones.
Confusion and doubt
Since January, Russia has fired at least 35,698 attack drones in Ukraine, according to Associated Press analysis of data from the Ukrainian Air Force.
Polish airspace has been violated many times since the start of a full-scale invasion of Russia’s Ukraine in February 2022. A fragment of the Ukrainian missile killed two people in Poland in 2023, but the drone lost in the Baltic Sea in Poland, Romana, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
However, until Wednesday, the NATO country had not maintained multiple invasions into the airspace. It was the first time NATO’s AirPower has been involved in an enemy target in NATO’s country.
Drone fragments were found approximately 554 kilometres (344 miles) to Polish territory. This is deeper than previous invasions.
Many remain unknown, and for now NATO is cautious. “We still don’t know if this is intentional or unintentional,” said General Alexus Grinkeivic, Europe, NATO’s highest alliance commander.
He continued: “I wouldn’t be able to tell you today with confidence that it’s 20 (drone) or that it’s 10. We need to go into the technical details to understand that, look at what they saw, see what they saw.”
It is “no difficult evidence” to say whether Moscow intended to fly the drones to Poland, said Ash Alexander Cooper, former specialist military commander and vice president of Dedron, who produces technology to detect and neutralize drones threats.
However, based on what is known about Russian drones and how they respond to electronic warfare, experts who spoke with the Associated Press said the intrusion was likely intentional.
Electronic warfare
There are two important ways to neutralize most drones. Shoot them down or hit them with electronic signal interference.
Jamming and spoofing are the main ways to do that. Jamming removes the connection of the drone with the satellite navigation system, but spoofing tricks the drone into thinking it’s somewhere.
If the drone is stuck either by Ukraine or Poland, it will either land or return to Russian or Belarusian origins, Wissington said.
If spoofed, it could possibly pop out of course, crashes, or land.
If the drone is spoofed, trying to jam it can actually “make the problem worse,” Alexander Cooper said. Jams a drone usually sends you home, but Russia is currently programming several drones so that “homes” are actually the target. If satellite communications are cut, the drone continues towards the target.
Military drones also have inertial navigation units that can use previous location corrections and gyroscopes to mark the location of the drone relative to the Earth, allowing them to continue flying without satellites or radio signals.
In that case, if Russia gave them a targeted “mission,” the drones could only penetrate deeper into Polish airspace, Wissington said.
Million dollar jet, cheap drone
The Russian attack drones (known as Shahed) are “hard to be difficult,” said Alexander Cooper. So NATO scrambled the jets to defeat them.
F-35 and F-16 fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters were deployed, and Soviet-designed MI-24 and MI-17 helicopters were deployed, the Polish Ministry of Defense said. The German Patriot missile defense system in Poland was also on guard.
Alexander Cooper suggested that the response was economically disproportionate to the threat.
“Firing a million dollar missile … is “not an economic model that can be maintained” for drones that cost tens of thousands of dollars,” he said.
General Wiswor Kukwuwa, commander of the Polish army general, told Polish television that costs were next to the points. “What’s important is the value of what this drone can destroy. If it’s Polish life, there’s no price,” he said.
If you are facing a swarm of drones like Ukraine, “there are enough aircraft within the NATO fleet or enough missiles or enough interceptors to do the job,” said Alexander Cooper. He also said fighter pilots (with limited supply and costly training) need to be harmed.
Drone innovation
Both Russia and Ukraine have rapidly developed new drones, technologies and tactics.
Since 2024, Russia has been mixed Decoy drone with no payload The two cannot be easily distinguished between armed Shahed to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses.
Russia also has the ability to tie a chain of drones together to bounce signals back and expand the range of another drone, said Fabian Hinz of London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In June, Ukraine used drones flying from trucks to attack domestic Russian fighters. Operation Spider Web. Ukrainian security services said it was used Artificial intelligence to partially pilot drones Along the route planned at the event, they lost the traffic light.
At the forefront, both Russia and Ukraine use fiber optic drones for surveillance and strike. It is not possible to interfere electronically as it is connected to the operator by a long, thin fiber optic cable.
NATO vs drone
Ukraine shoots down most Russian attack drones every night, according to Air Force data, but one or two. Can cause serious damage.
After the break-in on Wednesday, Polish authorities said fragments of the drone had been found at 16 locations. This could indicate that some drones have escaped.
The fact that some of the drones have been able to fly to Polish airspace up until now is a sign that “probably lacked detection capabilities somewhere,” Wysington said.
NATO’s current air defense is primarily set up to detect and neutralize rapidly moving targets, such as cruises and ballistic missiles, Withington said. He said he wasn’t designed to track small objects, often made from fiberglass or plastic, that don’t reflect radar waves in the same way as metal missiles.
Sikorsky said Poland on Wednesday needed drone walls and “new technology” to repel mass attacks.
Wysington said it would be wrong to suggest that NATO’s response was a “fail” because no one was killed during the incident.
But he said, “It could have been much more serious. My concern may be the next time.”
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Associated Press journalists Jamie Kieten of Geneva, Switzerland, Claudia Siovani of Warsaw, and Lydia Doy of Poland and London contributed to the report.
