Should NATO shoot down Russian drones over western Ukraine?

In the early hours of Sunday, September 8, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets took off from an air base in Borcea, a town near the Ukrainian border. Residents of the region were warned by text alerts.

The emergency response was triggered after Romania's radar surveillance system tracked a Russian drone entering Romania's airspace. The drone reportedly hovered there for over 30 minutes and ultimately headed back for Ukraine.

It was not the first incident of that kind in Romania or, for that matter, in NATO territory. Only a day before, a Russian drone dropped to the ground near the Latvian town of Rezekne, likely straying there from neighboring Belarus.

The number of such incidents has been increasing in the last four weeks, with Russia appearing willing to take more risks. "It is getting worse, and NATO has now really to come up with an answer," Jamie Shea, former deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges at NATO, told DW.

Shea, now a senior fellow at Friends of Europe, a think tank in Brussels, argues that the alliance has "to provide its member states with more protection." The alliance has promised to protect every inch of NATO territory since the beginning of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Is Russia testing NATO?

The organization has condemned recent airspace violations by Russia, calling them "irresponsible and potentially dangerous."

However, in a post on the social platform X, NATO's outgoing Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Geoana pointed out that the alliance does not have any information "indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies."

Experts such as Jan Kallberg, a senior fellow with the Center of European Policy Analysis based in Washington DC, suspect Russia may be probing NATO's reaction and seeking to find discrepancies "between what we say and what we do." They may also try to test NATO allies' ability to communicate, he told DW.

The issue was among the topics discussed during a closed-door meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels this week. The pressure seems to be growing for NATO to go beyond measures already implemented, including ramping up surveillance and air patrols anddeploying more air defense systems to the Eastern regions of the alliance.

Should NATO just shoot down Russia's drones?

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said that Poland, as well as other countries bordering Ukraine, have a "duty" to shoot down incoming Russian missiles before they enter their airspace.

In November 2022, two farmers died when a missile — this time it was a Ukrainian air defense missile — caused an explosion outside the village of Przewodow, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) west of the Ukrainian border.

As a sovereign nation, Poland could certainly do whatever it considers necessary for its self-defense, but the Polish government is unlikely to go ahead without a collective decision by the alliance. So far, NATO has opposed that proposal, stating it risks the alliance becoming part of the conflict.

"The escalatory mindset" is limiting the ability of NATO countries to help themselves and to help Ukraine, said Kristine Berzina, a security policy expert with the German Marshall Fund, a US public policy think tank. She pointed out to DW that despite Russia proclaiming "red lines all over the place," neither the West's evolving support for Ukraine nor Ukraine's recent incursion into Russian territory in the Kursk region has prompted "any kind of cataclysmic results by any means."

Could a buffer zone over the border with Ukraine help?

Extending Poland's or Romania's air defenses over western Ukraine would help Poland not only protect its own citizens but also Ukrainian cities such as Lviv, Berzina said. That would be an important and welcome side effect for Ukraine as winter is approaching, a season known for a rapid increase in Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

Shea, the former NATO official, also expects the prospect of incidents in NATO airspace to grow as Russia attack more targets in western Ukraine.

"The real question is: does somebody have to die in addition to the two Poles, and how bad does the situation have to get there before that kind of issue has to be addressed for the time being?" Shea said.

But Shea noted that if NATO decides to use its air defense systems over the border with Ukraine within a limited area, "it's got to be sufficiently limited" to not give the impression that "this is the introduction of the West into the war."

Still, "it's got to be operationally effective" not only to intercept drones but also ballistic missilesbefore they could cross over into NATO territory. According to Shea, a zone of 100 kilometers into Ukrainian territory is probably "the minimum to give you adequate reconnaissance, surveillance and interception time."

NATO allies restrained by domestic politics

In the end, it is certainly a political decision. Experts DW has spoken with agree that if NATO wants a buffer zone at the border with Ukraine, it will have the resources to establish it.

But is it likely to happen?

With the upcoming presidential election in the US and difficult domestic politics in France and Germany, governments there appear to have little appetite for making decisions that may be criticized as bringing their countries to the brink of war with Russia.

"As long as the Russians are not deliberately targeting us, we'll turn a blind eye," former NATO official Jamie Shea said.

But if there is a serious incident where a Russian drone falls on a supermarket in a NATO country, he added, it is going to be a very different story.

Edited by: Davis VanOpdorp