"To repel a stray drone in peacetime — something I would venture happens a couple of times a year — we would need to maintain air defense units along the border around the clock, with roughly 300 personnel per shift, and I think there would have to be two such shifts," Herem told ERR Thursday.

"In peacetime, that would be a very large number of people and I believe most of them would have to come from the reserve. So you and I might find ourselves spending a couple of weeks a year out in nature, simply waiting for something that occurs once every six months," he added.

Intercepting a drone in a border area similar to the Auvere power plant would also be technically very difficult, the retired general stressed, as the response time to such an intrusion — whether to open fire or deploy an interceptor drone — would be extremely short. Moreover, a drone flying at a low altitude of around 100 meters might not even be detected by radar, he noted.

"Most likely, it would have been detected by those same air defense units through hearing first and then sight. At that point, the time available becomes very, very short. Ukraine's experience shows that such drones can be heard about 15 seconds before they reach you. You can probably fire before that, but altogether, those 15 to 30 seconds are effectively the window during which it is within your range," Herem explained.

Higher threat level equals better preparedness

"So overall, this would be very difficult in peacetime. In wartime or in the event of a threat, our border would of course be fully covered. We would calculate the possible trajectories along which drones might arrive and position both radars and air defense weapons there — capabilities we already have today," the general stressed.

"Most people probably don't know this, but even the CV90 armored vehicle would be a very effective air defense platform; the 23-millimeter anti-aircraft guns used in Ukraine, of which we actually have even better versions; we have two types of air defense missiles — Piorun and Mistral; and we have 12.7-millimeter machine guns, all of which are in use in Ukraine — all of these could be employed today," he listed.

"But what the solution is in peacetime is very difficult to say," he admitted. "As I said, maintaining these units along the border 24/7, year-round, is something we likely would not want to do ourselves because it would consume a great deal of resources while providing limited benefit."

"One could, of course, theorize and speculate that we might know when the Ukrainians are going to carry out an operation and then move our air defense units to certain areas for that time. But all of that is a matter for the Defense Forces and for the state — how such decisions are made and how coordination with Ukraine is handled," he said.

"Air defense readiness is raised based on intelligence assessments and at present we do not believe that Russia would attack us — certainly not at this moment," Herem said. "What reached here was either accidental or a very cunning provocation by the Russians. And if we come to understand that this is something that will continue to happen, then we would need to raise that level of readiness. Should we already have done so? I think not — and besides, that would be hindsight," he added.

Chimney strike theories

Herem also outlined several possible reasons why the drone struck the chimney of the Auvere power plant early Wednesday morning.

"One possibility, for example, is that it was a Ukrainian drone that was hit by air defense and therefore veered off course, or a Ukrainian drone that was affected by electronic warfare measures and drifted away. And who knows how sophisticated these drones are — perhaps it was indeed meant to target some kind of chimney, but somewhere in Russia, and deviated from its coordinates, with its image recognition ultimately identifying a chimney it was supposed to attack. Or perhaps this was an opportunity exploited by the Russians: they may have obtained Ukrainian drones, flown them alongside Ukrainian ones and redirected one toward us, now quietly amused as we blame each other and point fingers at Ukraine," Herem said.

"Let the Estonian Internal Security Service investigate — it does seem, based on the image of the chimney, that it involved an explosive payload. But where it came from and how exactly it happened is difficult to say at this point, so it should be left to the experts," Herem added.

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