The Status of European Integrated Air and Missile Defences

By Hans Propsma

25th of March 2026

10 minutes

For the first time since the second world war, a large-scale land war is being fought on the European continent, and with this war comes the realization that peace is no longer a certainty. Once again the Russian threat looms over the European continent, and European nations need to undertake significant steps to be able to field a military that can effectively deal with their Russian adversaries. One of the areas that Europe needs to improve upon is air defence. During the night of September 9^th-10^th 2025, multiple Russian drones entered Polish airspace, several of which were successfully shot down, while others slipped through the cracks. In the case of the former, the drones were shot down by NATO fighter jets (van den Berg & Stijnman, 2025). The jets used rely on costly weaponry, making a one hour flight of a F-35A cost around $50.000 (Congressional Budget Office, 2025).

The Russian drone incursion during the night of 9-10 September is only one of numerous airspace violations that have occurred in recent years, and reinforced the necessity of air defence systems. The current problem is the state of European air defences, which cannot adequately counter the threat posed by the Russian Federation. European countries have identified this gap in defensive capabilities and are making moves to improve their air defences. This article will provide an overview of the threat posed by the Russians, the current air defence structure Europe has, and the new initiatives aimed at tackling the Russian threat.

Russian Air Capabilities

The Russian armed forces have a wide range of air capabilities, including (but not limited to) fighter aircraft and strategic bombers as well as low cost drones and hypersonic missiles. All of these air capabilities will require different tactics and air defence systems to effectively and efficiently counter. Understanding the capabilities of the Russian armed forces is essential to understanding what Europe needs to counter them.

The Russian air force is one of the largest air forces in the world, second only to the United States, and is estimated to field 4.237 aircrafts of varying types. If only combat aircraft (Fighter jets, ground attack aircrafts, strategic bombers) are measured, Russia possesses the 3^rd largest air force with 1.559 aircrafts (Flight Global, 2025). Aircrafts of these types have caused airspace violations throughout the cold war, and reemerged once again in recent years. On September 19^th 2025, three MiG-31 fighters crossed into Estonian airspace, and were escorted out by Italian F-35s (Lukiv, 2025).

Besides combat aircrafts the Russians also field various types of missiles that would need to be defended against. The Russians’ field cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The ballistic and hypersonic missiles have proven to be especially hard to intercept, even by the most modern air defence systems. The interception rates for the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (Air Launched Ballistic Missile) by Ukraine sit at approximately 37.5%, and the 3M22 Zircon (Hypersonic Cruise Missile) are recorded at approximately 28.5%. Russia has also recently developed the Oreshnik Missile (Intermediate Range Hypersonic Ballistic Missile), which (at time of publication) has never been successfully intercepted (Arputharaj & Mukherjee, 2026).

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, drones have become increasingly more prevalent, and the Russians have adopted various drones for military use. The strike drones Russia utilizes are almost all Shahed drones (or versions of Shahed drones), as the Shaheds are relatively cheap to produce and are one way drones. Russia launched a total of 54.538 Shahed ‘type’ drones against Ukraine in 2025. The interception rate for which in 2025 was approximately 87%, with fluctuations in the interception rate per month. This means that 7.263 Shahed type drones were still able to hit their targets, each of which were carrying a payload of explosives between 50-90kg (Anokhin, 2026).

Current European Air Defence Structure

The European armed forces are equipped with some of the most advanced air defence systems. These systems include the MIM-104 Patriot, the SAMP/T, IRIS-T and Arrow 3. However, the problem with Europe’s air defence at the moment is not so much the lack of highly advanced technology, but the scalability of those technologies.

Take for example the PAC-3 interceptors fired by the Patriot system, the production in 2025 yielded approximately 600 missiles. Recent deals have set in motion plans to expand production capabilities to about 2.000 interceptor missiles, but scaling this will take time (Lockheed Martin, 2026). The problem with scalability lies in the fact that Europe has to share those 600 PAC-3 Missiles with the US and other allies. With the US currently conducting military operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran, they have launched more than 1.000 PAC-3’s (Doyle et al., 2026), greatly limiting the amount for European use should there be an attack.

Across Europe, there is a divide on how best to approach the acquisition of new air defence systems, on the one hand you have countries like Germany, who favour purchasing already existing equipment from either the US or Israel. Alternatively, you have countries such as France who favour producing their own air defence systems within Europe, to ensure strategic autonomy. France has already developed their own air defence system in collaboration with the Italians namely, the SAMP/T. MBDA, the company that produced the SAMP/T is now also working on an improved version, the SAMP/T NG.

There are military assets that no European country has built to date. Examples of this are space based early warning systems and exo-atmospheric mid-course interception capabilities. For both of these capabilities, Europe is fully reliant on the US. In short, European countries do not currently have the production capabilities needed to field large enough numbers of air defence systems. European countries are overly reliant on partners such as the US and Israel, and lack coordination between their armed forces.

New Initiatives to Improve Integrated Air and Missile Defence Systems

The war in Ukraine has served as a wakeup call for the European nations, combine this with President Trump’s push for Europe to become more militarily independent of the US and there is a real need to improve European military capabilities. NATO countries, most of which are on the European continent have committed to spending 5% of their GDP on defence (with the exception of Spain). Now with the financial resources being available, Europe has come together around many different defence initiatives. The ‘Rearm Europe’ plan put forward by the European commission, has identified seven key areas in which Europe needs to improve upon its military, two of these are directly related to air and missile defence.

The European commission proposed in October 2025 four initial ‘European Readiness Flagships’, these are four initiatives that are aimed at improving military capabilities. Three of these ‘Flagships’ are related to air and missile defence namely, the European Drone Defence Initiative, the Eastern Flank Watch and the European Air Shield (European Commission, 2025), indicating the urgent need for the advancement of their air defense systems.

The European Drone Defence Initiative is focused on supporting member states of the EU, and complementing national measures with four key priorities. Firstly it wants to improve preparedness to drone threats, secondly the initiative aims to increase drone detection capabilities. The third component includes improving the coordination between member states in the detection and interception of drone threats, and fourthly strengthening the overall EU defence readiness (European Commission, 2026). The Eastern Flank Watch and European Drone Wall is specifically focused on countering the threat from Russia. The former aims to improve the EU’s readiness along the eastern border against threats such as hybrid warfare, cyberattacks and (maritime) conventional threats. The Eastern Flank Watch initiative will be working very closely with various NATO operations along the eastern border (Clapp, 2025). The European Air shield is an initiative, however, aimed at creating an integrated air and missile defence system that covers the whole of the European Union. This air and missile defence system would be fully interoperable with the NATO command and control doctrine (European Commission, 2025).

These initiatives form the basis of the EU’s drive to improve their military capabilities, but besides the EU created initiatives there are many more initiatives that European nations have created. An example of this would be the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI). The initiative consists of 23 European states, notably the initiative also has the participation of the UK and Turkiye. The goal of the ESSI is to ensure the future security of European air defenses (HENSOLDT, 2024).

Conclusion

The future looks hopeful for European air defenses, even though the current capabilities are lacking. The problem does not lie with the level of technology, but with the amount of systems that are available. Europe has launched numerous initiatives to address the issues they face, and in the coming years the results of these initiatives will (hopefully) improve the European air and missile defense capabilities.

Reference list:

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Arputharaj, B. C., & Mukherjee, A. (2026). Hypersonic Missiles: Evaluating Modern Warfare in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict. Journal Of Strategic Security, 19(1), 25–40. https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.19.1.2579

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