What would happen if Russia sent hundreds of drones into NATO airspace at the same time?This night-time reality of Russia’s war in Ukraine is a scenario the EU and NATO are trying to prepare for after last month’s Russian airspace incursions and alleged spying across Europe.Tomas Jermalovicius, a research fellow at the International Center for Defense and Security in Tallinn, Estonia, says NATO radars often don’t see incoming drones because “they’re flying too low.”
“And we also have very few means of beating them that have a proportionate balance of costs and benefits,” he told DW.Yermalovicius noted that an example is the downing of Russian drones over Polish airspace on September 9, as missiles worth half a million dollars were used against drones that cost no more than 50,000 dollars (42,930 euros).Close-up photo of Tomasz Yermolavičius Military experts worry that this unstable “cost-to-kill ratio” of expensive interceptors against cheap drones could adversely affect NATO’s air defenses in a full-scale war.To solve this problem, Yermalovicius suggests that startups should take center stage in drone defense strategies, especially since drone attacks now cause up to 80% of casualties in modern warfare.“Startups are disrupting these lazy patterns that our procurement systems and our defense industry players have been adapting to for decades,” he argued, adding that they are needed as a “thorn in the side of all these convenient mechanisms” to accelerate development.
Frankenburg for help?
One startup promising an affordable and scalable anti-drone system is Estonian company Frankenburg Technologies, which is based in Tallinn and has offices in the UK, Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania.In less than a year, Frankenburg has developed a prototype air defense platform that the company’s CEO, Krusty Salm, is proposing as a solution to what he sees as “NATO’s biggest vulnerability.”“Everything that Russia launches on Ukraine and potentially launches on European targets is an order of magnitude cheaper than everything we shoot them down with,” he told DW.According to Salm, the goal of the project is to make the Frankenburg system ten times cheaper than existing short-range air defense fighters, such as the American Sidewinders.Frankenburg currently has one NATO country as a customer and hopes to soon start producing hundreds of interceptor missiles a week with a €4 million investment in March.According to the British business daily Financial Times, startups specializing in drones and robotics have attracted more than half of all venture capital in the European defense sector since last year.Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that three of the four European defense startups with a so-called unicorn market valuation of more than 1 billion euros are drone manufacturers, among them Germany’s Helsing and Quantum Systems, as well as Portugal’s Tekever.
“Everyone and their mom has a drone launch”
While Western militaries are clearly interested in cost-effective Frankenburg-like solutions, there appears to be some wariness among traditionally risk-averse militaries to invest in largely unproven technology.“[Investors and defense ministries] want to buy a complete product with proven long-term support,” says Lithuanian Ritis Mikalauskas, CEO of Harlequin Defense startup.Ermalavičius believes that the caution is also related to the uncertainty surrounding the viability of startups. “If I buy a lot of things from a startup, and two years later they crash, who’s going to maintain the capabilities, service them, supply spare parts, upgrade them?”Mikolauskas says another challenge facing drone startups is increased competition. “For more than a year now, there’s been a running joke at defense events: ‘Everyone and their mom has a drone launch,'” he told DW. New drone startups popping up every week also seem to raise the question of whether there is enough demand for drones in Europe to satisfy the thirst for supply?The German military, for example, intends to provide a paltry 8,300 drone systems by the end of the decade — far fewer than other NATO nations.But Caspar Göring, co-founder of DarkStar, thinks the concern is unfounded. The military technology venture fund aims to combine the expertise of Unicorn founders, military veterans, investors and technical leaders.“Estonia has a multi-year tender for 400 million euros for the supply of flying munitions, which include certain types of drones,” Göring told DW. “And drone-related tenders are on the rise across the EU.”Countries on NATO’s eastern flank, such as Estonia, have begun using startups, including Frankenburg, to help build a so-called drone wall. The EU initiative is expected to consist of radars, acoustic sensors, mobile cameras, jammers and interceptor drones.
Combat tests in Ukraine?
Frankenburg and many other Western startups have also established ties to Ukrainian frontline units, allowing them to respond more quickly and accurately to ever-changing military operations than long-established defense companies and startups without such ties.Frankenburg interceptor missiles, says Salm, “have no aspect that would not be affected by information from the battlefield from Ukraine.”Such unhindered access is what separates the wheat from the chaff, says ICDS’ Ermalavičius.“The Ukrainians have a mountain of data collected from drones, but they don’t usually share it with foreign defense technology companies because of martial law restrictions,” he said. “So without close ties to military units, the question is how well foreign production can adequately reflect the realities of combat.”
“decisive advantage”
The ability of European startups to make a difference in fending off potential Russian drone attacks also depends on EU governments cutting red tape and providing a legal framework for peacetime warfare, says Misha Rudaminsky, who in 2022 founded Himera, a Ukrainian defense technology startup that makes electronic warfare-resistant, secure tactical communications systems.“At the beginning of a full-scale invasion, we had to overlook several restrictive laws that inhibited the development of innovative defense solutions,” says the 25-year-old, urging NATO countries to have “a set of laws ready to go into combat to avoid limiting the functionality of their weapons.”Meanwhile, the head of Estonia’s new Force Transformation Command, Ivo Pets, believes the value of drone startups lies in drawing on their special ability.“Their niche ability can be an advantage, even decisive,” Pitts, a former platoon commander who served in Afghanistan, told DW.However, that advantage will eventually “disappear because the battlefield needs to change,” he added, or the ability will become so effective that “everyone will adopt it and it will be mass produced,” which a startup likely won’t.
