Latvia will deploy interceptor drone units, including remotely operated .50-calibre automatic turret guns, to its eastern border within days, according to a senior Latvian military official.

Maj. Modris Kairišs, who heads Latvia’s Autonomous Systems Competence Centre (ASCC), said the military had completed testing of interceptor drones and was preparing to field the units within days.

He added that Riga had also completed development of a “totally remotely controlled” automatic turret system using .50-calibre weapons.

The deployments come as Latvia races to adapt lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine to the realities of protecting NATO’s eastern frontier. Like its neighbours, the Baltic country has also had to deal with Ukrainian drones, veered off course by Russian electronic warfare, crashing within its territory.

Such incidents earlier this month, which forced the resignation of Defence Minister Andris Sprūds and Prime Minister Evika Siliņa, were blamed on the army’s acoustic system, which failed to detect the incoming drones.

The hard part: detecting drones

Kairišs conceded that the “hard part is detecting (drones) and delivering the information to the right place”. Interception, however, is easier, he claimed.

Beyond the acoustic sensors, Latvia has also deployed tactical radars and optical camera systems to create what Kairišs described as a layered detection network. Small drones flying at altitudes of 50 to 100 metres are difficult to detect consistently with radar alone because of terrain and ground reflections, he said.

One of the main challenges is resources, Kairišs said, stressing that maintaining Ukraine-style border defences in peacetime would place enormous strain on Latvia’s military personnel, requiring “thousands” of troops.

Each interceptor unit is likely to include up to four soldiers and an “interceptor box”, and will be mobile enough to cover Latvia’s roughly 460-kilometre border with Russia and Belarus.

The other main challenge in countering drones is information sharing.

Armed forces are grappling with a broader challenge facing NATO militaries: how to rapidly distribute low-classification targeting information to frontline interceptor teams without relying on cumbersome centralised command systems designed during the Cold War.

Kairišs said sensor data is typically centralised and classified, making it difficult to quickly pass targeting information to mobile interceptor teams near the border. Lengthy accreditation procedures and secure communications requirements slow tactical responses, he said.

“One of the biggest challenges in NATO is the legacy way of thinking about command-and-control systems,” Kairišs said.

In response, Latvia and other NATO members are developing parallel low-classification command-and-control networks dedicated specifically to drone interception and low-altitude airspace monitoring, he said.

(aw, vc)