A second Russian drone incursion led NATO to scramble aircraft on Friday, the same day the alliance announced a new quick-response effort, officials said Monday.
A Rafale jet and a Polish helicopter responded to a drone over Romania on Sept. 12, marking the first action of the new Eastern Sentry effort, a press release said.
The effort was unveiled by U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
“Although the immediacy of our focus is on Poland, this situation transcends the borders of one nation. What affects one ally affects us all. This is an issue that impacts the entire Alliance, and we will treat it as such,” Grynkewich said at a Friday press conference..
Grynkewich said Britain, Denmark, France, and Germany had already deployed forces as part of the effort. He described the initiative as a “comprehensive and integrated approach” that goes beyond the case-by-case “individual air policing actions” of NATO’s previous air-defense posture.
The move follows Poland’s Sept. 9 report of 19 Russian drones crossing its territory. Poland and other NATO members responded by dispatching a variety of aircraft, including F-35 and F-16 jets and Mi-24, Mi-17, and Black Hawk helicopters. The alliance aircraft shot down several of the drones.
“Clearly, with the number they came across the border, it’s time to take a fresh look at this,” Grynkewich said.
The new activity reflects an understanding of Russia’s broader drone-warfare tactics, a NATO official told Defense One on background.
“If we look at how Russia is using some of those things in Ukraine, what do you normally see follow that large concentration of drones? What are some other things we’ve seen globally with respect to drone use? We’ve seen drones launched from ships as well as land,” the official said.
They said Eastern Sentry is meant not just to respond to drones and other air threats, but to a range of potential Russia escalations.
Grynkewich met Monday with all of his domain commanders, they said.
“It doesn’t just impact Allied Air Command, and it doesn’t just impact Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum, which leads integrated land command. We’re looking at this holistically along the eastern front,” they said.
In the coming weeks, NATO will also deploy of new counter-drone technologies. The official said more details would follow but pointed to Project Flytrap, a series of U.S. Army Europe and Africa experiments—with the United Kingdom—that employ counter-drone systems developed from Ukraine’s battlefield experience, including acoustic sensing.
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