Latvia to Deploy Anti-Drone Teams at Russian Border

Latvia is stepping up anti-drone defenses on its borders with Russia and Moscow-allied Belarus after several Ukrainian drones strayed into the airspace of NATO Baltic countries.

Ukraine, which has been targeting Russian oil-loading ports on the Baltic Sea, has said Russian signal jamming caused the drones to veer off course.

Two drones exploded at an empty oil storage facility in Latvia on 7 May. Another crashed into a lake on Saturday after entering the country undetected. An approaching drone also forced lawmakers in Vilnius to take shelter underground, while a NATO military jet shot down another drone over Estonia.

“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.

The teams will consist of up to four soldiers in off-road vehicles operating killer drones capable of destroying incoming military drones within a 10 km radius. The number of teams patrolling Latvia’s 400 km border with Russia and Belarus remains 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”, Kairiss said.

Small military drones pose a growing challenge for Latvia and NATO because they are difficult to detect, identify and intercept, especially in peacetime, he added.

(reuters, max)