Calls for NATO members to help Ukraine shoot down Russian drones and missiles are growing stronger

NATO, whose aid and military support for Ukraine has been crucial in its war with Russia, is facing growing calls to do more to deter Russian missile and drone attacks, some of which have violated the airspace of NATO members.

Romania and Latvia, both NATO members, recently reported that Russian military drones violated their airspace. Neither country intervened militarily, although Romania had military aircraft intercept the drone and later said it did not have the necessary legislation to intervene.

Romania also said that “parts of a Russian drone” were found at a “hit site” on the outskirts of the village of Periprava in Tulcea, on the Romanian-Ukrainian border. Latvia said the drone entered the country’s airspace from Belarus and crashed in the municipality of Rezekne.

Since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, drones and missiles believed to originate in Russia have entered or been shot down in Ukraine's neighbors - including Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and now also rare Latvia.

Romania suffered particularly badly. The country shares a 650-kilometer border with Ukraine and its territory lies just a few hundred meters from Ukrainian Danube ports that have been frequently targeted by Russian attacks.

This pales in comparison to what Ukraine has suffered. Since the beginning of the invasion in 2022, Ukraine has been hit by around 15,000 Russian airstrikes or drone strikes, with the number of attacks increasing dramatically since mid-2023.

Russia fires missiles and drones at targets in Ukraine every day and, according to the latest assessment by the Kiev School of Economics, has already caused at least $155 billion in damage to civilian infrastructure.

The Russian invasion has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians, destroyed cities, and forced millions of people to flee their homes.

Perhaps the most senior Western official to call for a more robust Western response to Russian missiles and drones was Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski. In a recent interview with Britain’s Financial Times, Sikorski said Poland had a “duty” to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine.

NATO has rejected such demands.

"Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fragments of Russian drones and missiles have been found several times on allied territory. These actions are irresponsible and potentially dangerous," a NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in a written statement to Radio Free Europe.

"While we recognize the right of each Ally to defend its own airspace, what individual Allies do to support Ukraine may also be important for NATO as a whole. Alliance partners will continue to consult on further steps to protect and defend alliance territory. What is clear is that NATO will not intervene in the conflict," the official continued.

However, some military analysts believe that Kiev's assistance in launching drones and missiles over Ukraine, as well as intercepting and eliminating aerial threats penetrating the territory of neighboring countries, would not constitute an escalation. They argue that the failure to take such measures only further emboldens Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Russia has pressured us in many ways and has increasingly become confident that we will do nothing,” said Ben Hodges, a retired U.S. lieutenant general and former commander of U.S. forces in Europe. “It’s long past time to take more active steps to help Ukraine win and protect innocent people,” Hodges told Radio Free Europe.

“All countries have the absolute right to self-defense and control of their air, land, and sea space. China and Russia routinely violate these spaces. States have the right under international law to launch unidentified missiles into their airspace,” argued Alexander Crowther, a retired U.S. Army colonel and senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a Washington-based think tank, in a commentary for Radio Free Europe.

This comes at a time when the West, namely the United States, is weighing whether to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to attack military targets deeper inside Russia, especially now that Russia is reportedly fielding more deadly missiles obtained from Iran.

Ukrainian officials pressured US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British counterpart David Lammy on the issue during a visit to Kiev on September 11.

The NATO official, who spoke to Radio Free Europe for background, said the military alliance has made "unprecedented contributions to Ukraine's defense, spending about 40 billion euros a year on military support for Ukraine."

NATO air defense shield

Fredrik Wesslau, a former Swedish diplomat and fellow at the Stockholm Center for East European Studies, recently presented a proposal in the American journal Foreign Affairs on how NATO could protect its eastern flank and provide much-needed air defense for western Ukraine.

“The idea is to station ground and air forces from NATO allies, e.g. Patriot systems or F-16 [fighter jets], in strategic locations in Poland, Slovakia and Romania on their side of the border with Ukraine and use these assets to intercept Russian drones and missiles that initially enter the airspace of these allies, but also to intercept them over Ukrainian territory as they head towards NATO and NATO allies,” Wesslau explained in an interview with Radio Free Europe.

Some analysts have argued that such plans present logistical challenges.

“If you want to hit targets over Ukrainian airspace, there needs to be some kind of coordination mechanism so that Ukrainian weapons don’t clash with NATO weapons and the identification of Russian missiles is clear to all parties,” William Taylor, the former ambassador to NATO, recently told Australian broadcaster ABC News.

Involving at least two command and control systems and identifying friendly and enemy targets from multiple locations “would make it difficult,” Taylor said. “In the best-case scenario, there is only one system.

“Well, I think for this to work there needs to be some level of integration with Ukrainian air defense,” Wesslau countered. “I mean, to some extent that already exists today, but I think the idea is for this air defense shield to be operated by a coalition of volunteers.”

"I understand that NATO does not want to confront Russia, but individual states can defend their airspace. Note that in 2015, Turkey, a NATO member, shot down a Russian plane that violated its airspace," Crowther added, referring to an incident that Putin described as a "stab in the back."

The United States has already shown it is willing to take such measures elsewhere, Hodges said.

"We are doing this in the Red Sea to protect international shipping from Houthi missiles and Israeli citizens from Iranian missiles. Why can't we protect innocent Ukrainian civilians from Russian missiles?"

More than 300 missiles and drones were fired from Iran toward Israel late on the evening of April 13, but virtually all were intercepted before they reached Israeli territory. American, British, and Israeli forces destroyed almost all of the missiles.

"Shaheds (Iranian military drones) in the skies over Ukraine sound identical to those in the Middle East. The impact of ballistic missiles, if not intercepted, is the same everywhere," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter on April 15.

Later that day, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was asked by reporters why the United States and its allies shot down Iranian drones over Israel but not over Ukraine.

"Two different conflicts, different airspace, different threats. And the President has made it clear from the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine that the United States will not be involved in a combat role in this conflict," Kirby said.

However, the fronts may shift, albeit gradually, as Ukraine's Western allies are no longer so cautious.

"I think the more we don't respond, the greater the risk becomes in a way, because it's very clear that Russia is prodding and testing, and if there's no response, it keeps pushing. And in a way that raises the stakes and the risk of escalation," Wesslau explained.

"Some allies are against it, some are for it, but I think this is one of those issues that will become more important over time as we see more and more of these incursions by Russian drones and missiles."