President Putin is redoubling his efforts to demonstrate his capacity for disruption in order to gain a position of strength for Russia in any future negotiations. While Moscow undoubtedly has neither the objective nor the military means to wage war against another country, Russia is stepping up its incursions and threats — with Poland, Romania and the Baltic states as its primary targets — and its war rhetoric is beginning to target Finland.

In addition to the “exercises” conducted with Belarus, officially deploying 13,000 troops (30,000 according to Lithuania) in Operation Zapad (West) 2025, the swarms of drones over Poland and the violation of Romanian airspace are intended to test reactions and hide the essential: the daily deadly attacks on Ukraine. In August, Russian forces killed at least 208 civilians in Ukraine and wounded 827 others. And on the night of 12 September, the Russian army launched 164 combat drones and an Iskander-M/Kn-23 ballistic missile against Ukraine.

With drones, war comes at a lower cost

Resistance to Putin’s invasion has ushered in a new kind of warfare for the 21^st century: drone warfare. Born out of Ukrainian popular ingenuity and low cost, it quickly became part of the war economy deployed by the attacked country. Russian military power has since adapted to this, with a completely different scale of resources, while NATO is finding it very difficult to cope.

Anti-drone systems can be used to protect infrastructure. But if the attack affects an entire border, the allies are now forced to rely on their fighter planes with on-board missiles, as was the case in Poland, which is costly.

Adapting to change

Western military leaders could resort to more rudimentary but innovative solutions, currently being deployed in Ukraine. Known as Sky Fortress or Zvook (“sound” in Ukrainian), these solutions rely on the deployment of thousands of acoustic sensors across vast areas of territory, capable of detecting the noise emitted by drones. According to the Ukrainians, the unit cost of these antennas is no more than a few hundred dollars. The entire network would therefore cost barely more than a single Patriot missile (€3.4 million for the latest version). Ukraine also manufactures interceptor drones designed to collide with or explode near targeted drones. The EU is investing in an industrial “drone wall” project along these lines.

But these technologies are evolving at an unprecedented rate — we are talking about months or weeks, whereas it takes decades to build a high-performance fighter jet. Above all, Ukrainians know that their allies are not prepared to hunt down drones with large machine guns mounted on trucks, as their soldiers are doing in their struggle for national liberation.

Catherine Samary