On September 8, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets took off from a military base near the border with Ukraine. The emergency response was triggered by a Russian drone that entered Romanian airspace. The drone lingered there several times for 30 minutes before heading back to Ukraine.
This is not the first such incident in Romania and other NATO countries. A day earlier, a Russian drone crashed in Latvia, possibly entering the airspace via Belarus. The number of such incidents has increased in the last four weeks, and Russia seems to be willing to take greater risks. “It is getting worse and NATO needs to really decide how to respond,” said Jamie Shay, former deputy secretary-general for security at NATO. Shay thinks the Alliance should be more supportive of its members.
Russia testing NATO?
The alliance condemned the violation of the airspace of member countries and called it “irresponsible and potentially dangerous”. NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Joanna indicated that there is no information that Russia's actions were intentional.
Experts such as Jan Kalberg of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington believe that Russia may be looking to provoke a reaction from NATO and is looking for discrepancies between the alliance's words and deeds. There may also be an attempt to test communication within NATO, Kalberg says. Pressure appears to be mounting on NATO to go beyond measures already in place, including stepping up surveillance and air patrols and deploying more air defense systems in the alliance's eastern regions.
Should NATO shoot down Russian drones?
In a recent interview with the “Financial Times” Polish Foreign Minister Radek Szykorski said that Poland, like other countries bordering Ukraine, has a “debt” to shoot down Russian missiles that are aimed at their airspace before they reach it. In November 2022, two farmers died after a Ukrainian air defense missile landed in a Polish village near the border with Ukraine.
As a sovereign nation, Poland can take whatever measures it sees fit, but the government in Warsaw is unlikely to take such a step without the agreement of NATO. So far, the Alliance opposes this proposal, arguing that there is a risk that NATO will become part of the conflict. “NATO's problem with the escalation of the conflict limits countries to defend themselves and help Ukraine”, says Christine Berzina from the German “Marshall Fund”. The expert also draws attention to the fact that, although Russia does not stop talking about "red lines", recent events - the entry of Ukrainian parts into Russian territory and the permission to use Western weapons in Russia - did not cause any cataclysm.
Would a buffer zone along the border with Ukraine help?
Expansion of Polish and Romanian air defense over western Ukraine will help protect not only Polish citizens, but also Ukrainian cities like Lviv, says expert Berzina. This would be an important bonus for Ukraine, because winter is approaching, and that's when Russian troops usually attack the country's energy infrastructure.
Jamie Shay also expects incidents in NATO airspace to increase as Russia attacks more targets in western Ukraine. But Shay noted that if NATO decides to use its air defense systems over the border with Ukraine “it must be limited enough” to not create the impression that “this is bringing the West into the war”.
However, it “must be operationally effective” not only to intercept drones, but also ballistic missiles before they cross into NATO territory. According to Shay, a zone of 100 km inside Ukrainian territory is probably “the minimum that will allow enough time for reconnaissance, surveillance and interception”.
Obstacles to NATO countries
After all, it is a political decision. The experts with whom DV spoke are of the opinion that if NATO wants to introduce a buffer zone along the border of Ukraine, this can be achieved. But is it likely to happen?
With the upcoming US presidential election and the complicated domestic political situations in Germany and France, more and more countries seem reluctant to make decisions that could be interpreted as their country's involvement in Russia's war against Ukraine. “Until the Russians deliberately target us, we will turn a blind eye,” said former NATO official Jamie Shay. But if there is a serious incident where a Russian drone falls on a supermarket in a NATO country, he adds, the situation will turn out to be quite different.