Just hours after Russia launched more than a dozen drones that flew hundreds of kilometers in Poland before being intercepted, an EU Parliamentarian told The Jerusalem Post that Europe is not prepared for a large-scale drone war with Russia.
“Europe is not ready for this new reality,” said Reinis Pozņaks, Member of the European Parliament. “Drones have changed the world, and we need to be able to fight against drones that can come any day, from anywhere.”
Pozņaks recently visited Israel as part of a delegation to learn about drones, counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) warfare, and resilience.
“We took on the initiative because of the war in Ukraine,” another member of the delegation said. “If we have one mission, it is to win that war. Second is we understand that the Baltic countries and the eastern flank are particularly vulnerable and deeply concerned by Russia.”
“Most intelligence assessments are that Russia will eventually try to push into the Baltic states and Poland. Ukraine is just a stop on the way to Russia’s real destination. Russia thinks they are winning the war and they won’t stop,” the member continued. “When Russia comes for the EU, they will come with drones and we need to be ready. We need secure infrastructure, bomb shelters, C-UAS…everything that Israel showed us to protect our society.”
After recognizing the mass proliferation of precision strike capabilities in Ukraine and the Middle East, the team is designing a strategy report for counter-drone warfare in the EU. Drones, they recognized, are the main platform of modern warfare, be it in Ukraine, the Middle East, or elsewhere, and if given enough time, a mass casualty event by those platforms is bound to happen.
According to Pozņaks, “there are so many different drones and C-UAS technologies. But our existing radars don’t see them and we need to build systems to detect drones and in Israel we saw a couple of very good solutions.”
Prior to Wednesday morning, Russian-launched Shaheed drones already violated European airspace, flying through Latvian, Romanian, German and even Polish airspace. And, the Post has learnt, EU radar and air defenses are not focused on drone warfare.
The delegation, which also visited Ukraine to learn lessons from that war, did not come to Israel to meet with government and military officials, rather civilians and civilian companies. The visit was scheduled for early June, but due to the war with Iran was postponed to late August. The delegation met with a variety of experts on drones and counter-UAS warfare as well as resilience in order to understand the technology Israel is using to counter aerial threats.
According to one member of the delegation, Israel - which has a much better industrial base for C-UAS and EW capabilities- has mastered the low-cost intercept. And with all the conflicts that Israel has faced, the country is fortified against threats, with residential or public shelters.
Israeli expertise
One Israeli expert who spoke to the delegation was Brig-Gen. (res.) Avi Bachar. The former head of RAHEL (National Emergency Authority) has shaped Israel’s homefront preparedness from the ground up. Much of the structural backbone and operational methodology of the IDF’s Home Front Command today bears his imprint.
Bachar founded IsraTeam, a crisis management group that has operated in Israel and abroad, from South Korea to Brazil. In recent years, the team’s focus has been driven by a sobering realization that the post-World War II age of peace in Europe is over.
“The war in Ukraine was a wake-up call,” Bachar says. “Europe realized it had neglected civil defense for decades.”
According to Pozņaks, civil defense does not exist in Europe except for Finland, where the country has been preparing for conflict with Russia since the end of World War II.
“Europe has no plans of action in case of a war, maybe natural disasters but not war,” he said, adding that it is not only about physical shelters but the mindset and strength of the population. “I don't know how European countries will react when and if the war starts,” he said.
Until the Gulf War, threats against Israel were largely slow-moving aircraft that allowed civilians time to reach underground shelters. But when Iraqi missiles struck in 1991, the paradigm shifted. With only 6–7 minutes to impact, the concept of the mamad (a reinforced safe room inside every apartment) was born. Now the time to impact is even less.
“These rooms have saved lives,” Bachar notes. “But they were never designed to withstand direct hits from supersonic ballistic missiles like those we saw from Iran.” The kinetic force alone from an Iranian missile could penetrate the reinforced concrete and to withstand such threats, walls would need to be 60–70 cm thick, that’s “a monster fortification,” he says.
Yet not all areas receive equal protection. Strategic sites like data centers and power stations are prioritized over civilian neighborhoods. “You don’t give the same level of preparedness to everything,” Bachar explains.
Delegations, drones, and doubts
The war in Ukraine has also transformed the battlefield, especially with the significant use of drones. European interest in Israeli technology is high, albeit discreet. “They like our technology,” Bachar says, “but there’s a big difference between what they say publicly and what they really think. They won’t say it out loud.”
The delegation said “we see your technology and we are 25 years behind you,’” Bachar recalls.
According to Pozņaks, “Israel has great technologies and a great discovery for me was that many of the solutions were not super expensive but existing technologies that are used in a very smart way. It’s a big skill to take existing technologies and use them to the maximum. The same thing with shelters, they are built in a very smart way to make them effective with existing resources.”
The delegation is now drafting a report with recommendations for the EU, expected in two months. It could influence policy in countries like Poland, Romania, and Latvia.
According to Bachar, while European nations have increased their defense spending, it’s not focused on critical gaps such as shelters. “They’ve increased defense spending, but on missiles, not shelters,” he said.
One of the most profound shifts in global defense thinking, according to Bachar, came not just from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but from US President Donald Trump’s reelection.
“Nobody knows what Trump will do tomorrow,” he says. “He’s threatened to pull American troops from Europe unless they pay. Even in the Far East, they’re unsure if America will stand by Taiwan when and if the time comes that China attacks.”
And this uncertainty is pushing nations toward self-reliance. “They want to depend only on themselves,” Bachar says. “No one else.”