УНН News of the World ✎ Romania spent about 1.5 million euros over three days to shoot down three Russian drones. Most of the costs are AIM-9X missiles
worth $400,000 each.
If I were the boss of NATO I would have said 3 years ago that any drones flying closer than 100 km to Ukraine’s border with NATO is a red line and if crossed, NATO troops will be moved into Ukraine to provide air defense there and secure NATO airspace before anything “accidentally” crosses into it. This would give me a loophole to put NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine, helping with logistics and securing weapon transports while not participating in the conflict or any offensive operations. The next red line would be that if any of those troops are attacked by Russia NATO would start supporting offensive operations as well.
Sadly NATO chose instead to do nothing. Not 3 years ago nor today. They just say “it’s not nice and one day we may do something about it”.
and if crossed, NATO troops will be moved into Ukraine to provide air defense there and secure NATO airspace before anything “accidentally” crosses into it
Great way to use a relatively cheap drone to cause NATO to spend big money on troop and air defense deployments. If you want to do asymmetric warfare, you want the costs to be the other way around.
NATO is already spending this money. They send Patriots and shitload of other equipment to Ukraine. They pretty much provide all the air defense to Ukraine, they just do it indirectly. They had to train Ukrainian troops to use NATO systems and they don’t control the supply chain once it crosses the border. That’s why they were providing more advanced weapons very gradually - they were worried were those will end up once they hand them over. Having NATO troops inside Ukraine but hundredths kilometers from the front lines would let them provide crucial support without excessive risk. Or may have stopped Russia from striking targets deep in Ukraine.
Russia was coming up with new red lines all the time. They said that if long range missiles will be provided to Ukraine they will start using ballistic missiles and they did. What red lines did NATO came up with? None. Russian drones are now regularly crossing into NATO air space and NATO still has no idea how to react.
If I were the boss of NATO I would have said 3 years ago that any drones flying closer than 100 km to Ukraine’s border with NATO is a red line and if crossed, NATO troops will be moved into Ukraine to provide air defense there and secure NATO airspace before anything “accidentally” crosses into it. This would give me a loophole to put NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine, helping with logistics and securing weapon transports while not participating in the conflict or any offensive operations. The next red line would be that if any of those troops are attacked by Russia NATO would start supporting offensive operations as well. Sadly NATO chose instead to do nothing. Not 3 years ago nor today. They just say “it’s not nice and one day we may do something about it”.
This is a good idea, but they probably didn’t do it to avoid hurting any fat orange fee fees.
Great way to use a relatively cheap drone to cause NATO to spend big money on troop and air defense deployments. If you want to do asymmetric warfare, you want the costs to be the other way around.
NATO is already spending this money. They send Patriots and shitload of other equipment to Ukraine. They pretty much provide all the air defense to Ukraine, they just do it indirectly. They had to train Ukrainian troops to use NATO systems and they don’t control the supply chain once it crosses the border. That’s why they were providing more advanced weapons very gradually - they were worried were those will end up once they hand them over. Having NATO troops inside Ukraine but hundredths kilometers from the front lines would let them provide crucial support without excessive risk. Or may have stopped Russia from striking targets deep in Ukraine.
Russia was coming up with new red lines all the time. They said that if long range missiles will be provided to Ukraine they will start using ballistic missiles and they did. What red lines did NATO came up with? None. Russian drones are now regularly crossing into NATO air space and NATO still has no idea how to react.