In Global Guardian's "Your Questions Answered" series, our experts address pressing questions on current events, providing insight and analysis on the issues that impact your personal safety, business operations, and travel security.
Read below for insights from our analysts and subject matter experts, and get in touch with our team for further support and guidance.
This week’s question
October 27, 2025
Recent news about Russia's drone incursions into Europe has repeatedly used the phrase "Drone Wall". What is the drone wall and what does it mean for European security?
Global Guardian’s response
Provided by: Joe Chafetz, Intelligence Analyst
The aerial component of Russia’s hybrid-warfare campaign against Europe—a project Moscow has been pursuing for more than a decade—has grown increasingly brazen in recent months. On 09 September, over 20 Geran and Gerbera drone systems violated Polish airspace. Within hours, European Commissioner President Ursula von der Leyen called for a “drone wall” on Europe’s eastern flank. However, nothing substantial currently exists to protect Europe from the threats posed by drones. Subsequent drone-related airport shutdowns over the last couple months in Denmark and Germany have driven this point home.
European Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius, one of the drone wall’s key proponents spoke to this deficiency when he told reporters “our capabilities are really, for the time being, quite limited.” Europe’s air defense systems are extensive when considering the threats they were designed to counter: sophisticated, large, manned airframes such as the MiG-31s that violated Estonian airspace late last month. Europe’s fleet of advanced 4th and 5th generation fighters and ground-based interception systems are more than capable of intercepting small numbers of manned Russian aircraft.
But, confronted with large numbers of small and relatively inexpensive Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS,) the prospect of using $100 million F-35s to fire $500,000 AIM-9 missiles into $10,000 Russian Gerbera drones is untenable. Enter the drone wall: a proposed line of sensors, electronic warfare systems, and interceptors that could allow Europe to stop the majority of Russian drones. But, for now, the drone wall remains aspirational.
Until and unless Europe overcomes the political and logistical challenges to integrating and augmenting national drone defense systems, the bloc will remain at risk of compromising, disruptive, and coercive drone activity.
Key Takeaways
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Defense Gap in Europe: While Europe’s traditional air defense systems are highly capable against manned aircraft, they are poorly suited to counter the volume and low cost of small unmanned aerial systems (UAS), creating a critical gap in protection.
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Drone Wall Still Conceptual: The proposed “drone wall”—a network of sensors, electronic warfare tools, and interceptors designed to defend Europe’s eastern flank—remains largely theoretical due to political and logistical barriers, leaving Europe exposed in the near term.
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