Latvia to strengthen anti-drone defences along its Russia and Belarus border

By Andrius Sytas

SELIJA MILITARY BASE, Latvia, May 27 (Reuters) – Latvia is increasing anti-drone defences on its borders with Russia and Moscow-allied Belarus in response to drones flying into the NATO country, an army official told Reuters.

Ukrainian drones have strayed into NATO Baltic countries’ airspace in recent weeks, sowing confusion and raising tensions with Russia at a time when U.S. commitment to NATO’s collective security is in question.

Ukraine, which has been targeting Russia’s Baltic oil loading ports, has said Russian jamming of their drones’ signals had caused them to veer off course.

Two such drones exploded at an empty oil storage facility in Latvia on May 7. Another exploded into a lake on Saturday after flying into the country undetected, witnessed by a fisherman.

An approaching drone forced lawmakers in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius to take shelter underground on May 20, and a NATO military jet shot down another drone over Estonia on May 19.

“We plan to deploy (drone) interceptor teams over the next two weeks”, Modris Kairiss, head of the Latvian Army Autonomous Systems Competence Centre, told Reuters at a side event of the Drone Summit conference in Latvia.

The teams will consist of up to four soldiers in a rugged terrain vehicle operating killer drones, which can destroy incoming military drones in a 10-km (6-mile) radius, he said.

The number of such teams patrolling the 400-km Latvian border with Russia and its ally Belarus is classified.

“We do need to increase the number of such teams, but we need to balance this against other army needs. If we put them on every kilometer of the border, we will quickly burn all army resources”, he said.

DRONES PRESENT CHALLENGES TO NATO

Speaking to Reuters at a military testing range where Latvia is trying out the newest drone technologies in a NATO programme, Kairiss said taking down military drones in peacetime is complicated, because radar data in NATO countries is classified and sharing it with soldiers tasked with destroying drones is cumbersome.

“It’s not enough to engage with anything you notice. We need to identify it first”, to avoid hitting a civilian airplane, Kairiss said.

Another looming challenge for the Latvian military, and NATO in general, is the growing use of small drones, Kairiss said.

“They are several steps ahead of the anti-drone systems… Detection and interception of the small targets is hard, and it’s the big challenge that soon we will all face,” he said.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas; editing by Philippa Fletcher)