Tallinn sensor hub is central to NATO’s cheaper drone shield

On Saturday, Romanian Air Force F-16s shot down a pair of jet-powered attack drones over the Black Sea with Sidewinder missiles after the aircraft entered NATO airspace. Fighters had already downed a suspected Russian UAV over Lithuania on 15 September and were scrambled earlier that month to another drone in southern Estonia. The alliance can stop these intruders, Newsweek reports, but each shot spends scarce missiles, flying hours, maintenance and aircrew that may be needed against harder threats.

Lieutenant General Guillaume Thomas, deputy commander of NATO Allied Air Command, told Newsweek that fighters and missiles are still used when people or infrastructure are at risk. Colonel Fredi Karu, Estonia’s Air Force chief of staff, said the purpose of air defence is to protect people, critical infrastructure and military capabilities, and that damage from a cheap unmanned aircraft can far exceed the drone’s own cost.

Romania has recorded 35 unauthorised drone entries in 2026, against nine in 2025 and seven in 2024. The Baltic states and Poland have faced dozens of drone-related incidents. One September 2025 violation by more than 20 Russian drones led to Operation Eastern Sentry, which added fighters, surveillance aircraft and ground-based air defence on the eastern flank. In July, NATO upgraded air policing into an alliance-wide air-defence posture.

Thomas said air command wants to stay on the right side of the cost curve by integrating mobile firing teams, helicopters, cheaper drone interceptors and other systems. The harder problem is deciding what is approaching—a Russian attack drone, a Ukrainian interceptor, a commercial aircraft or something else—and which unit and weapon should respond. He described that process as “sense, make sense and act,” and warned that hundreds or thousands of drones and missiles at once would force very fast command-and-control decisions.

Karu said earlier detection, identification and tracking leave more time to judge the threat. Air surveillance and early warning are core tasks of Estonia’s Air Force. No single sensor covers small, low-flying aircraft, so different sensors must be combined into one recognised air picture. Estonia’s Air Surveillance Wing runs a Command and Reporting Centre in Tallinn that turns radar data from across the country into a real-time view of NATO’s eastern flank.

Lithuania is testing SkyFortress, a Ukrainian network for low-flying drones and cruise missiles. Major Romas Zakaras, commander of Lithuania’s air-defence battalion, said the country is building acoustic, electromagnetic and other detectors alongside kinetic systems and is training under “low missile procedures.” In Latvia, Allied Command Transformation is exercising whether sensors, command systems and interceptors from different allies can operate as one network.

Sustaining that network is an industrial problem. Ukraine destroyed more than 4,700 Russian drones and missiles in September alone, nearly 2,000 of them faster jet-powered drones, while thousands more got through. Thomas said industries must produce the ammunition needed against mass attacks. In July NATO announced Front Door and NATO Engine to expand air-defence and strike production and simplify procurement. Researcher Arun Dawson told Newsweek that stockpiles of today’s counter-drone technology are not enough, because successful defences push Russia to field faster, harder-to-kill drones. Justin Bronk of RUSI has suggested cheap jet trainers such as the Czech L-39 Skyfox, armed with guns and guided rockets, as a short-term squadron while sensors, AI-assisted command systems and drone interceptors enter service.