Close to the Ukraine war: Air force secures Nato's south-eastern flank

Defense - Close to the Ukraine war: Air force secures Nato's south-eastern flank

Four Eurofighters and a new defense system against drones for self-protection: The German Air Force is participating in the protection of NATO's south-eastern flank with armed protective flights.

This is also the Alliance's response to incidents in which unmanned aerial vehicles of Russian origin or remnants thereof have struck the Danube Delta. Germany is supporting Romania with the deployment, said Lieutenant Colonel Markus Kuchenbaur, who is leading the Bundeswehr contingent of up to 150 men and women, at the Mihail Kogălniceanu military airfield near Constanta.

On the Romanian side of the border with Ukraine, there were four incidents in which airspace was violated. They were all related to Russian attacks on Ukrainian Danube ports. A very precise analysis showed that these incidents were probably not intentional on the part of Russia, as was explained. However, there have also been confrontations over the Black Sea. It made headlines when a US drone was apparently brought down by a Russian fighter plane.

War within sight

The area is geographically narrow and the war in Ukraine is practically within sight from an aviation perspective. It takes five to eight minutes to fly from the military airfield to the Ukrainian border. The Black Sea coast is also practically under our noses. This is where the Romanian twelve-mile zone up to international airspace begins, which is also used by Russian military aircraft.

"We are very close," says Kuchenbaur. And: "My pilots have been instructed to act defensively." The German pilots and their Eurofighters do not leave the twelve-mile zone off the Romanian coast, he explains, so they do not fly any further in the direction of the conflict zone, thus signaling their defensive mission.

The "defense system against unmanned aerial vehicles" (Asul), an anti-drone device introduced in 2022, was also relocated to the camp used by the Bundeswehr at the military base. Key components include an operating container and antenna systems as well as a mobile jammer.

Focus on defense

"We are deployed to protect material and personnel," says commanding officer Dominik, a lieutenant. Drones can be detected up to 40 kilometers away. A jammer can interrupt the connection to the remote control of the missile. The system has also been used in Mali and Estonia.

"Enhanced Air Policing South (eAPS)" is the official name of the NATO deployment, which is part of military deterrence. Within the alliance, states in the east and south-east are provided with capabilities that they do not have or that they need more of.

Within 15 minutes, the Eurofighter alert rotorcraft must be in the air in accordance with NATO standards, which was demonstrated with a training take-off ("tango scramble"). "Alpha scramble" is the sharp deployment after an alert. It is explained that the point at which an armed attacker is engaged is decided at NATO level. There are no plans to shoot down a drone entering Romania - not least because the use of weapons brings its own dangers.

This is the Bundeswehr's third mission of this kind in Romania, after Eurofighters were already deployed there in 2021 and 2022. In addition to the Tactical Air Force Wing 31 "Boelcke" and the specialists from the air defense missile force with Asul technology, soldiers from the Air Force's "Friesland" object protection regiment are also at the airfield. They secure the site with masks and assault rifles on the ground, even if it is in friendly territory.