Baltic states agree to establish "drone wall" to protect borders

The Baltic states have agreed to establish a "drone wall" to protect their external borders with the help of UAVs.

Source: Agnė Bilotaitė, Lithuanian Interior Minister; European Pravda; Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT

Details: Bilotaitė made this statement after a meeting with her counterparts from two other Baltic countries, Poland, Finland and Norway on Friday in Latvia.

Quote: "This is a completely new thing – a drone wall stretching from Norway to Poland – and the goal is to use drones and other technologies to protect our borders [...] against provocations from unfriendly countries and to prevent smuggling."

More details: The countries will use UAVs to monitor border areas to create a drone wall and apply counter-drone systems to intercept drones from hostile countries used for smuggling or provocations.

Bilotaitė stated that Lithuania has developed plans to enhance the protection of its border using drones. She emphasised that the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service recently established a UAV unit and is acquiring additional UAVs and counter-drone systems.

Now, the countries will assess what homework they need to do, and then, with the help of experts, national authorities will develop a plan to implement the creation of a drone wall.

The Lithuanian minister couldn't specify when the idea would be implemented but noted that the drone wall could be funded by the EU, adding that the ministers also agreed to organise joint evacuation exercises in participating countries.

"We agreed to hold regional drills to ensure the evacuation of the population, to see how our institutions are prepared to work, to interact with each other, what our capacity is to accommodate people, what the capacity of other countries is, whether they are ready to receive a certain number of our people," the interior minister said.

"We still have a lot of questions; we need to look at all those algorithms. Drills would be very valuable as we would look at things, evaluate them and we would strengthen our preparedness," Bilotaitė added.

Background: 

• On Tuesday, 21 May, a draft law was noticed on the Russian government's website indicating its plans to unilaterally change maritime borders with its neighbours in the Baltic Sea. After the proposal gained attention, it was removed from the website.
• On Thursday, 23 May, Estonia stated that Russian border guards had removed buoys marking the navigable channel from Estonian waters on the Narva River.
• EU diplomat Josep Borrell said the European Union expected Russia to explain the removal of buoys on the Estonian-Russian border on the Narva River and demanded that they be immediately returned to their place. A number of EU states issued separate statements expressing support for Estonia and condemning Russia's provocative actions.
• The Finnish prime minister suggested that Russia is testing NATO with its actions.

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