European Union leaders are meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Wednesday for informal talks on trade, the war in Ukraine, and security for the group of 27 countries. The leaders will also reportedly be talking about what’s being called a “drone wall” to defend against recent intrusions by suspected Russian drones that have caused havoc.
Several countries in Europe have seen mysterious drones in their airspace during recent weeks, including incidents in Denmark last week that temporarily shut down airports. Danish officials didn’t officially blame Russia but described the drones as part of a “hybrid attack” that also included cyberattacks.
NATO fighter jets shot down Russian drones in Poland last month as experts warned President Vladimir Putin was testing boundaries in Europe. President Donald Trump tweeted “Here we go!” about the incident without giving any further explanation.
Russia has been antagonizing NATO-aligned countries as Europe promises to ramp up support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and there’s no end in sight to the slaughter. President Donald Trump promised to end the war even before he took office in January, but that didn’t happen, and Europe has been forced to assist Ukraine more than ever as the U.S. recedes from an international role of leadership under Trump’s authoritarian government.
German officials also announced Wednesday that they were investigating drones spotted near critical infrastructure in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, which shares a land border with Denmark. Drones of “various types and sizes” were spotted in the German state last week above sites like a power plant, a hospital, government buildings, and an oil refinery, according to the Associated Press. Drones were also spotted over a military base in the city of Sanitz, also in the north of the country.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, first raised the idea of a drone wall during a speech in September, saying that it’s not an abstract ambition for the future. “It is the bedrock of credible defense,” she insisted.
“Europe’s eastern flank keeps all of Europe safe. From the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea,” von der Leyen said. “This is why we must invest in supporting it through an Eastern Flank Watch. This means giving Europe independent strategic capabilities. We must invest in real-time space surveillance so that no movement of forces goes unseen. We must heed the call of our Baltic friends and build a drone wall.”
The wall wouldn’t be a physical barrier but instead a system that tracks aircraft entering a given area. The anti-drone system could deploy jamming technology to take down aircraft or even use more aggressive methods. Germany’s DW news outlet, for example, has recently discussed how laser weapons could be used in a drone wall system.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt announced over the weekend that the government plans to allow security forces to shoot down drones. But there have been difficult domestic security questions about how to accomplish that.
The government needs to amend Germany’s Aviation Security Act, first passed in 2005, to allow the military to shoot down drones when local police are unable to accomplish the task, according to Politico. Existing law only allows police to use radio jamming equipment or nets to take down drones.
Shooting down drones can get expensive if you use the wrong tool. For example, back in 2024, the U.S. military was frequently using missiles that can cost $2 million each to shoot down Houthi drones in the Red Sea that cost about $2,000. But the military started to deploy lasers to shoot down those drones, which are much less expensive, at anywhere from $1-$5 per shot, according to DW. And that’s why German media is talking about lasers at a time like this.
The downside, however, of using lasers is that they have a limited range and don’t perform well during bad weather. The U.S. first shot down a drone during a test in New Mexico in 1973.
As the New York Times notes, there aren’t many details publicly available to provide insight into what a drone wall might look like in Europe. Nor is there any kind of timetable for when it might be constructed. But the Times notes that any drone wall would likely rely on expertise from Ukraine, which has learned a lot about UAV detection during its war against Russia.
While there’s concern about the drone intrusions, some leaders have also cautioned against overreacting to anything and everything spotted in the skies. Mass hysteria can get out of hand, as we saw in the U.S. when drones were spotted over New Jersey in late 2024.
“I will explicitly say that not every drone controlled by foreign powers is automatically a threat either,” Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Monday, according to the AP.
Russia has denied that it’s responsible for any of the drone sightings in EU countries, going so far as to suggest the drones spotted over Denmark recently were part of a false flag attack.
“The suspicions against Russia are ungrounded,” Russia’s embassy in Denmark tweeted. “The incident in the sky above Copenhagen Airport reveals a clear desire to provoke NATO countries into a direct military confrontation with Russia. It is unacceptable to pander to this.”
But the EU meeting on Wednesday isn’t just about drone defense. The European leaders are also discussing whether to seize Russian assets to help fund a loan of roughly $164 billion to Ukraine, according to Reuters. The concern, however, is that seizing Russian funds in Europe would lead to people pulling their money out of EU countries over fears that it could be confiscated on a whim.
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