The UK military will be authorised to shoot down mystery drones over military bases in future, following a spate of drone incursions to European states that have seen airports shut down and property damage caused.
Unidentified drones that get too close to military bases will be liable for destruction in future, the British Minister of Defence John Healey will tell the lord mayor’s defence and security lecture in the City of London, per the soft launch of the speech by his department.
It is already possible for the military to use non-kinetic means, such as jamming radio signals, to misdirect or disable mystery drones. But the deployment of force could be conceivably necessary in cases where a drone is more sophisticated and hardened against interference, or if it presents a clear and present threat.
Yet using live weapons of war over a densely packed country like the United Kingdom comes with very real risk. Quite apart from the danger of falling wreckage from destroyed drones, the remains of potent anti-air missiles falling back down to ground is also potentially lethal, as has been seen time and time again in Ukraine.
Indeed in Poland, a massive night-long incursion of Russian drones into NATO airspace over their country saw several shot down by intercepting F-16s. Yet the greatest damage of the day was caused by a U.S.-made AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), launched by a Polish-operated F-16 jet fighter, which apparently missed its target and landed on a house.
The building had its roof blown off. England is more densely populated than the Lublin Voivodeship region of Poland several times over.
The new rules for shooting down drones may be several months in the making, if not more, given Healey is due to day they will be part of a new Armed Forces Bill, The Guardian reports.
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