Europe is learning to shoot down drones. It wants to be better prepared for Russia's hybrid attacks
A few days earlier, the alarm was announced in Ireland. Drones were spotted in the Dublin area during Volodymyr Zelensky's visit. Prime Minister Micheál Martin later emphasized that there was no threat to the plane of the President of Ukraine (the plane had already landed), but at the same time found the event suggestive in the context of the Russian hybrid campaign. The Russian embassy denies it, reports “The Economist”.
Drones are no longer rare. In European cities alone, Eurocontrol's measurement systems (ACUTE project) detected 3,833 “close encounters” of drones with manned ships in 2024. This more than twice as much as a year earlier. The British government has been assuming for years that by 2030, there may be over 76,000 operations in the UK sky. commercial drones. In such a crowd, it is more difficult to distinguish an accident from a deliberate provocation.
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First detect, then neutralize
Europe's greatest weakness? Small drones are difficult to detect and even more difficult to safely “remove” from the sky. Classic aircraft radars are designed to miss small and slow objects (birds, clutter), which is exactly what a typical quadcopter is. Therefore, the importance of passive sensors listening to radio communications and specialized radars and optics that can be placed at points around airports, ports and bases is growing.
Once the drone appears in the systems, the first instinct is to neutralize without using fire. That is, jamming or impersonating the navigation signal to force the plane to land. These are the methods that appear in the reports from France that we read about in the weekly.
The problem is that effectiveness decreases when someone uses non-standard components, different bands or autonomy. Then what's left is hard action – from nets to weapons. And here comes the paradox. Shooting down a small drone over a densely populated area can be more dangerous than the intruder itself in the airbecause the debris has to fall somewhere.
Airports are particularly susceptible to low-cost blackmail. All it takes is a credible report to stop traffic, divert planes and cause chaos. In November, Dutch services used anti-drone weapons over the Volkel base, but without recovering the wreckage – this clearly shows how difficult it is to quickly collect evidence and assign responsibility.
The law chases the threat. This is just the beginning
Technology is one thing, but regulations and procedures are equally important. Many countries today prefer to close their airspace rather than risk shots fired near people and critical infrastructure. Hence the wave of legal changes. Germany has prepared regulations giving police clear powers to shoot down drones in “acute threat” situations, and Lithuania has passed a law allowing the military to destroy drones violating its airspace.
After the incident related to Zelensky's visit, Ireland announced the acceleration of purchases of anti-drone systems. The amount of EUR 19 million and the plan to locate the set in Baldonnel near Dublin, where foreign guests often come, appear in the public debate.
At the same time, there are increasing suspicions that some of the operations may be a naval version of a hybrid war – using units of the Russian shadow fleet for reconnaissance activities or launching drones closer to European coasts. France conducted investigations in 2025 around a tanker suspected of being linked to such incidents.
This does not mean that the Kremlin is behind every alarm. A joint analysis by Dronewatch and “Trouw” indicated that in most of the cases examined, even the presence of a drone could not be confirmed, and hard evidence of foreign perpetrators is usually lacking.
