Europe faces a problem it’s never solved: how to stop thousands of cheap drones without bankrupting itself firing million-dollar missiles at styrofoam.

Ukraine already knows the answer.

The European Union’s “drone wall” defense initiative, reinvigorated just hours after Russian drones violated Polish and Romanian airspace on 10 September, could elevate Ukraine from aid recipient to essential defense partner— if said allies can overcome the technical and organizational challenges of such an ambitious project.

The scale of the ambition involved is hard to understate. “It requires a whole paradigm shift,” Kirill Mikhailov, a military researcher with the Conflict Intelligence Team, told Euromaidan Press. Brigham McCown, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, called it a “monumental undertaking.”

If successful, the initiative can further accelerate Ukraine’s transformation from a beleaguered country asking for aid into an important part of European defensive strategy. Ukraine can help develop the technology, industrial practices, and organizational doctrines required for a new way of air war.

The need to integrate weapon systems and practices could also bind Ukraine even closer to its allies and help develop additional trust, potentially helping its arms-producing companies develop.

Why Ukraine holds the keys to Europe’s defense future

For Europe, it’s a way to evolve from reliance on big, expensive weapons, a doctrine that’s aging in the face of massed cheap unmanned aerial vehicles now swarming the skies.

“It should be pretty obvious that you don’t shoot down styrofoam drones with $2 million missiles,” Mikhailov said. “Thing is, that is all the Europeans currently have.”

Andrius Kubilius, the European Commissioner for Defense and Space, acknowledged a similar point at Ukraine’s Defense Tech Valley expo in Lviv on 17 September.

“We understood a simple truth: we do not have those capabilities that Ukraine has on how to fight against drone invasion,” Kubilius said. “We have F-16s, we have F-35s, we have all other weapons, but we do not have those capabilities.”

It’s unclear to what degree the EU intends to protect Ukraine with this initiative. Kubilius said this curtain must extend “across the entire EU Eastern flank.” This language suggests the possibility that Ukraine will be left to protect its own airspace alone as the EU turtles up.

Furthermore, Kubilius told Euromaidan Press that “each country on the frontline needs to have its own companies to produce,” making unclear the role of Ukrainian developers in the EU’s strategic air defense planning.

Depending on how strongly the EU countries favor local companies, this could make the drone wall more costly and difficult to build.

Kubilius told Euromaidan Press that it was too early to estimate the cost or build time of the initiative, but said that some public estimates by analysts suggest it could be done within a year.

Several defense experts who spoke with Euromaidan Press believe that multiple years are a likelier estimate.

First steps

NATO has been looking into a drone defense initiative throughout the full-scale invasion, military insiders told Euromaidan Press.

The term “drone wall” has cropped up in the news for months. French company Altares, speaking at the Defense Tech Valley, said it’s been working on it for six months, together with the Alliance.

But the rhetoric around a drone wall went into overdrive after the incursion of Russian drones into Polish and Romanian airspace on 10 September. Hours following the attack, in her 2025 State of the Union address, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen revealed plans for a new “Eastern Flank Watch.”

This would include the “drone wall,” which she said would stretch down from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

Von der Leyen said the EU would set up a “drone alliance” with Ukraine, funded by 6 billion euros. This will fall under the aegis of the G7-led Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration initiative, which is supposed to provide about 45 billion euros in financial support to Ukraine, with the EU contributing 18.1 billion euros.

Von der Leyen said that a roadmap for “getting new common defence projects off the ground” will be presented at the next European Council on October 23-24, with an eye towards setting clear goals for 2030.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Poland agreed to establish a joint operational group on unmanned aerial systems, with representatives from both countries’ armed forces.

What’s in it for Ukraine: from aid recipient to tech powerhouse

There are multiple potential upsides for Kyiv becoming Europe’s defense tech guru. For one, it could help Ukrainian companies grow and expand.

“Ukraine has the silicon valley of this kind of technology, type of know-how and can become the world leader in drone and anti-drone tech, detection, counter, and this has very broad application beyond the current conflict,” McCown said.

Euromaidan Press spoke to several Ukrainian drone producers, who said that despite the government’s stated intention to procure all weapons produced from accredited and trusted contractors, the state is not able to afford their entire production capabilities.

Some Ukrainian companies are longingly eyeing the export market, but Ukraine’s hard restrictions on the import of military tech doesn’t allow it. The drone wall initiative may change things in that regard.

“The government hasn’t been warm to the idea of lifting the arms export ban,” Mikhailov said. “Now that Zelenskyy can paint himself the savior of Europe and make Ukraine indispensable for European security, I have few doubts he would greenlight it if asked.”

DeVore said that Ukraine’s innovation with drones, machine learning, AI and battle management is absolutely deeply respected. Allies are “very hungry to learn these lessons and one can think of this as a form of soft power or influence that Ukraine has.”

However, when asked if this might translate into more negotiating leverage for Kyiv, DeVore doesn’t believe so. “I think those allies that most appreciate and are most eager to learn these lessons are those that already have really close relations with Ukraine and are doing as much as feasible to help Ukraine,” he said.

Countries that are less worried about Russian attacks, such as Spain, Italy, and Hungary may not be swayed enough to change the overall status quo.

“This is a good thing for Ukraine, because that would build trust, interdependence, interoperability,” Mikhailov said. “It can be like the backbone of Ukraine’s further participation in NATO.”

The head of a Ukrainian company that builds interceptor drones, who did not wish to be identified for security reasons, said he hopes a closer working relationship between Ukraine and its allies, as part of the drone wall initiative, could help isolate Russia.

The massive technical challenges ahead

The obstacles the EU must overcome to build the drone wall are as almost as diverse as the hardware involved.

The most obvious challenge is logistical — drones require management of their power supplies, weather resilience and durability. Many thousands of drones must be built, deployed and serviced on a regular basis, with each requiring batteries, charging stations and redundancy plans for failure.

Data architect Daniel Connery said that the truly defining obstacle would be the creation of a software layer that can manage inputs from so many different systems and turn them into one coherent defense network, which is secure from outside tampering.

“Without a unifying software layer, you don’t have a ‘wall’ — you have scattered bricks,” he wrote to Euromaidan Press.

Ukrainian networked battlespace systems like Virazh and Delta may show Europeans the way forward, experts pointed out.

Manufacturing priorities are also bound to come up. After decades of consolidation, Europe has a small number of large defense contractors. These types of companies aren’t the most nimble when it comes to pivoting from producing few expensive weapons to many cheap ones.

Most analysts agreed that smaller companies will rush to fill that space, whether it’s local European firms that manufacture civilian equipment, or Ukrainian firms opening subsidiaries.

Speaking at the Defense Tech Valley, some Western firms complained about bureaucracy and confusing official procedures when it comes to doing business in each others’ territory. Legal, administrative and security clearance questions likely need to be resolved before cooperation can be scaled up to greater heights, experts said.

Ukraine might also need to accelerate its judicial reforms, as its legal environment is an Achilles’ heel when it comes to foreigners doing business with the country.

DeVore said that one problem with European defense programs is the dilemma between spending in Europe and spending efficiently. Systems produced in European nations are more popular with policymakers, but they aren’t the most cost-effective solution.

DeVore believes the drone wall is “fully feasible, it just requires some combination of political will and money.”

“Those two are inversely correlated,” he added. “The more political will the West has in putting this together, the cheaper it is.”

Alya Shandra, the editor-in-chief at Euromaidan Press, contributed reporting.