SIX Nato nations are planning to create a “drone wall” to shield the alliance’s eastern flank from the growing threat of Russia.
Thousands of surveillance and possibly armed drones are set to patrol the tense frontier all the way from Norway to Poland.
Norway, Finland, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and Poland have agreed to create a shared drone border to protect the rest of Europe from incoming threats.
Elaborating on the plan to The Times, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said Europe has returned to the “darkest days of the Cold War”.
He revealed that the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will monitor attempts by Russia and Belarus to use large numbers of migrants as a “weapon” and other provocations.
Although he said the drones will mostly be used for reconnaissance, he did not rule out that armed drones may also be deployed.
Ministers from the six nations met last week to sign a proposal for the “wall”.
Each country will be responsible for piloting its own defensive drones, but other details of the plan, including its funding, are still being ironed out.
Agne Bilotaite, Lithuania’s interior minister, said earlier this week: “This is a completely new thing.
“A drone border from Norway to Poland”.
Speaking to Baltic News Service, she added: “This will allow us to protect ourselves from provocations by unfriendly countries.”
Nato’s frontline nations have become increasingly nervous that Vladimir Putin will set his sights on marching further West if he succeeds in Ukraine.
Poland has already spent billions shoring up its defences on its border, while Finland, which shares a 830-mile border with Russia, swiftly joined Nato in April 2023.
Russia has also been increasing its military defences on its northwest border with Europe since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine 27 months ago.
Putin has moved nuclear missiles to Belarus while also piling more weapons into its most westerly territory of Kaliningrad.
In response to Russian aggression, Estonia is building 600 army bunkers along its frontline as part of plans to create a “Baltic defence line” to strengthen regional security.
Last week, the country said Russian border guards were removing buoys in Estonia’s waters that had marked navigable channels in a river that straddles the border.
One day earlier, Moscow sparked fury after publishing a proposal to redraw its sea borders with Finland and Lithuania.
On Monday, a former Russian general urged Putin to invade the Baltic states to correct a “historical injustice”.
Nikolay Plotnikov told state TV such a move would bring Russia back to Soviet glory.
Moscow and Minsk have both been accused of trying to stoking up chaos and discord by sending migrants to the borders of its neighbouring Nato nations.
Finland last year was forced to close its border after Russia flew in migrants for Asia and sent them to the border on bicycles.
POLAND’S ‘TUSK LINE’
The development of the “drone wall” comes as Poland is crafting a £2billion 430-mile “Tusk Line” of military defences brimming with minefields, anti-tank ditches and bunkers.
The country shares a 170-mile one with Belarus and a 130-mile border with Kiliningrad, both areas increasingly dumping grounds for Putin’s weapons.
Warsaw said it is being targeted by Russian aggression via both those frontiers.
PM Donald Tusk announcing the project earlier this month said it will be “impassable to a potential enemy”.
The Baltic states are collaborating on the ambitious project – set to be finished by 2028.
It comes as Ukraine has started testing out high-tech drone killing guns that can blast Putin’s kamikaze bombs out of the sky using electronic waves.
Their potential ability to smash flying Russian targets from two miles away could make the new Kvertus AD KVS G-6 defensive weapons a hugely valuable asset on the battlefield.