Drone manufacturer: No silver bullet solution against drones
Estonian drone manufacturer Meridein Group's head of development Eduard Vainu said on the "Terevisioon" morning show that even with all possible detection methods working together, not every drone can be identified.
Vainu described Russia's counter-drone measures on the program. "They try to create a kind of digital shield that tells GPS receivers, for example, that north is actually 90 degrees to the left and that way redirects the drones somewhere else. And why redirect them over their own territory if they can redirect them toward us," Vainu said.
He acknowledged that Russia's electronic warfare capability is still among the best in the world.
"This is a cat-and-mouse game. On one side, I, as a drone manufacturer, have to build an aircraft that can carry as much weight as possible, fly as far as possible, while remaining invisible and accurate. The other side's job is to build systems that detect it, determine whether it's theirs or the enemy's and then bring it down — either electronically or kinetically," Vainu explained.
Despite the fact that a drone reached Lake Võrtsjärv on Sunday, Vainu believes Estonia's air surveillance capability is strong. "It's not right to think that now it's all over and we can't see anything. I'd only be worried if the real field experts who work on this said things were going badly," he said.
"This really is a very complex case, because a low-flying drone with a small radar signature is inherently hard to detect," Vainu said.
"You can never really prepare too well. And this applies especially to air security and drones. Because there are multiple layers. There's visual observation, either with sensors or by people. Acoustic sensors, electronic intelligence, signals intelligence. All kinds of tools are used and integrated. And even then, you may not reach 100 percent. There is no silver bullet here," Vainu said.
Expert: Estonia has effective anti-drone technology but is not using it
Security expert Ilmar Raag said on "Vikerhommik" that Estonia already has technology used for drone defense in Ukraine, but it has not yet been deployed. Raag was referring to the Skyfortress drone radar system.
Asked why existing technology has not been put into use, Raag said the workload is simply so large. "And then there's this odd factor that war speeds up innovation. But since we're not actually at war, our innovation is just slightly behind," Raag said.
"The logic is really that you need to take the most likely threat and respond to it the fastest. And right now, that threat is drones. Our current order of priorities has been to focus on the most dangerous threat and start responding to it. And that logic makes sense. The only thing is, the most dangerous threat right now is not the most likely one," Raag explained.
As of today, a large-scale war in Estonia is not very likely. That could change, but at the moment we can say we don't see it happening in the near future. What is likely, however, are different hybrid attacks — incidents that could include explosions and, unfortunately, even people being killed here and there.
"Nothing bad happened today, it just pointed a finger at where we have a gap," Raag said, commenting on the recent drone incident near Lake Võrtsjärv.
"The issue isn't just about military drones in the future. We're already seeing in the Middle East and Africa that terrorists are using the same technology. And from there it's just a small step to various forms of organized crime and smuggling," Raag said.
"This technology remains the same everywhere. For security reasons, we need to adopt it one way or another," he added.
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Editor: Aleksander Krjukov, Marcus Turovski
