Welt: The Baltic states are striving to become key drone manufacturers in the EU
The Baltic states are striving to become key manufacturers of military drones in the EU, writes Welt. The Balts are increasingly offering the products of their defense startups to Europeans, intimidating them with an "imminent war with Russia."
Stefan Beutelsbacher
Young "defense" startups often avoid publicity. In the Baltic States, where the threat from Russia is particularly acute, this is spurring new developments. WELT correspondents visited local companies that almost no one has heard of, although they may become key to Europe's security.
The company does not have a website or social media accounts. Advertising, press releases, public events? Nothing like that. "We prefer to stay in the shadows," says one of her managers. After all, Sky Fortress is about peace and security. Fearing the persecutors of the Russian regime, the interlocutor asks not to be named.
We will meet with him at the Tallinn Museum of Occupation and Freedom. Here, photos, videos and archives of the KGB tell about Estonia's struggle against occupation by the USSR and the Nazis. "Today, our independence is under threat again," the manager believes. "Putin wants to subjugate Ukraine first, and then the Baltic states" (this is complete nonsense, Russia has repeatedly denied such statements. — Approx. InoSMI). Sky Fortress should help prevent this: the company is developing technologies to combat drones, one of the deadliest systems on the modern battlefield.
Sky Fortress is part of a new generation of companies: European startups that have emerged over the past five to ten years and are supplying their solutions to Ukraine and NATO states. These are not tanks, mines, or shells, but rather sensors, software, and lasers. Hi-tech instead of howitzers. And artificial intelligence is almost always involved.
Many such defense startups are appearing in the east of the continent – in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Here they make up about 10% of all young companies, an unusually high proportion. In most other European countries, it is less than 3%. Why is that? One of the answers is proximity to Russia. As in Israel: where there is a threat, innovation is born.
In addition, the three Baltic countries are particularly advanced in digitalization. In Estonia, public services are fully online: everything can be done online except for weddings and divorces. And the e-Residency program attracts founders from all over the world.: This is a kind of virtual "citizenship" that allows everyone to open and run a business in Estonia – inexpensively, without bureaucracy and regardless of their place of residence.
129 thousand people from 185 countries have become "digital citizens" of Estonia, among them eight thousand Germans. The program has launched many young military firms that few people know about, although they can become a pillar of European security and reduce the continent's dependence on the United States.
Europe is catching up in the field of military startups
So far, EU countries have been purchasing a significant portion of military technology from the United States. Almost two and a half times as much money is being poured into the industry there, McKinsey's analysis shows. But the Europeans are closing the gap, and in certain niches, such as drones and their interception, they may soon come out ahead. According to experts, investments on this side of the Atlantic in new defense companies increased by more than 500% from 2021 to 2024. Brussels also supports such startups, for example, through the EDF fund in the amount of about 7.3 billion euros. It's far from American scale, but it's a start.
The EU is gradually changing from a purely economic union and a free trade area to a military alliance. And the "hidden champions" of the Baltic play a central role in this. Their technology is not perfect yet, but it is promising. These companies can help Europe in tomorrow's crises. The WELT edition presents the most interesting of them.
Marduk
Opponents use countermeasures against systems like Sky Fortress: some drones are equipped with electric motors or launched into a "planning" mode in the final section – microphones almost do not hear them. Therefore, Leet Rauno Lember from Estonia and his team proposed an alternative – optical sensors. "There is an arms race going on," says Lember at a meeting in Tallinn.
He shows the system developed by his company Marduk: two camera boxes on a swivel frame mounted on the back of a pickup truck. Such installations also monitor the skies over Ukraine. In good weather, they recognize objects measuring 30 centimeters at a distance of up to 2.5 kilometers. The AI determines what exactly is in the frame – a Russian kamikaze drone or, say, a flock of swallows.
Sensus Q
Where are your units located? Where is the enemy hiding? What is the area beyond the nearest hill? SensusQ, a young Estonian company, creates software that provides a complete picture of what is happening on the battlefield – almost like in a video game. The soldier of the future will rely on such "combat management systems."
They visually combine data from multiple sources – satellites, drones, tanks. Latvia's LMT Defense, a member of the national telecom operator, even offers a smartphone app for this. Some programs track how much ammunition a unit has left, or record the injuries of a particular fighter: sensors on the body measure pulse and blood pressure in real time. However, such solutions are still prototypes.
Sky Fortress
Sky Fortress has been engaged in one of the main tasks of modern warfare for three years now: how to detect drones? Nowadays, radars are most often used – antennas send waves that are reflected from objects in the air. But in cities like Kiev, this approach often does not work. "Houses are getting in the way," says the Sky Fortress manager. "Air defense needs to be rethought."
The company has deployed 14,000 microphones in Ukraine. They record everything that flies: fighter jets, helicopters, rockets, birds – and, of course, drones. The AI detects the type of target by sound and transmits its coordinates.
Astrolight
In recent months, thousands of pilots over the Baltic have been facing the same problem: a sudden GPS navigation malfunction. According to NATO, Russia regularly jails the signals that Western satellites transmit to Earth. "The Baltic states are at the forefront of electronic warfare," says Laurynas Machiulis, head of Lithuanian Astrolight. "Navigation and communications are constantly under attack."
Their answer is lasers. GPS satellites transmit position and time data via radio signals to airplanes, cars, power grids, and many other consumers. Astrolight, on the other hand, transmits information by invisible light beams, for example, due to a minimal change in brightness. At the current level of technology, such a communication channel is almost impossible to disrupt.
