00:00Drones have become ubiquitous in many parts of the world, from little consumer-sized machines for hobbyists or photographers to
00:06large-scale military weapons.
00:08This weekend's forecast newsletter, Bloomberg Weekend, senior writer Morgan Meeker examines how cities are adapting to protect themselves from drones
00:15and not just in war zones.
00:16We spoke with her earlier from London.
00:19I wonder if we could start by having you describe this new danger that cities, yes, in Europe, but really
00:25around the world are facing.
00:26I think we are very used to talking about drones in a military context, but this year we're increasingly seeing
00:33them appear above civilian centers, so cities.
00:36Earlier in the year, we saw them above the Gulf.
00:39Drones, Iranian drones, were flying above Dubai, Kuwait, Bahrain's capital, Manama.
00:45This summer, we've seen NATO shoot down four drones over Romania.
00:50We've had the Leipzig airport drone.
00:53And so I feel like we're increasingly seeing drones appearing above countries that would have considered themselves previously to be
01:00at peace, and that kind of raises this new debate.
01:03I mean, there's the counter-drone industry has kind of focused on the battlefield, but it's a bit more complicated
01:10when you're talking about shooting down a drone over a civilian area, where there's lots of people, lots of buildings.
01:16That's kind of a different challenge.
01:17And do we know what kind of drones these are, are these surveillance drones, are these munition drones, or is
01:22it a combination of both?
01:24So in different cities, you're seeing different things.
01:27So Kyiv, for example, is seeing these larger drones.
01:30These drones are constantly evolving.
01:32So from the end of August, we're seeing Russia use new jet-powered drones, which Kyiv's air defense system is
01:39finding harder to intercept.
01:41In different cities in Ukraine, I spoke to a state official in Kherson, and he's having a bigger problem with
01:48smaller drones.
01:49They're much harder to detect on radar systems.
01:52So when it comes to shooting them down, the challenge is different depending on what kind of drone you're dealing
01:57with.
01:57So small drones, the technology is very difficult because they don't show up on radar systems.
02:01They fly in unpredictable patterns.
02:04That makes them harder to shoot down.
02:06When it comes to the bigger drones, like the famous Shahhead-style drones, they are technologically easier to detect and
02:13to shoot down.
02:14But to do so is very expensive if you're using kind of missile systems.
02:18So what the industry and governments are really looking for is a cheaper drone defense system.
02:23And so if drones kind of attack in large quantities, so you need to be able to shoot them down
02:28in a way that's sustainable for the long term.
02:31You mentioned the kind of difficulty of shooting them down, the expense of shooting them down.
02:34Talk a bit more about that, if you would.
02:36There's a lot of collateral damage that can come with taking these drones out.
02:39Yeah, and I think that's very interesting because Kyiv, for example, is kind of held up as the gold standard
02:45when it comes to defending air defense for a city.
02:48But Ukraine is a country at war, so there are equations that the Ukrainian officials might make that might be
02:54totally unpalatable to countries like Romania.
02:57So in May, the city of Galatsy, an apartment block there was struck by a drone.
03:03It injured two people.
03:04It left a charred hole in an apartment building.
03:07And the Romanian military were aware of this drone flying over the country.
03:11And they kind of watched it, but they didn't know where it was going.
03:14So we're seeing in peacetime, there's a lot of limits on what militaries can do.
03:18You obviously can't be shooting things down in the same way that you might be if your country is at
03:23war.
03:23So there's a lot of restrictions.
03:25And so that's kind of making, that's kind of creating a new debate about, you have to, city officials, governments
03:31have to make these kind of calculations.
03:34So they have to think about if you shoot a drone down, where is the debris going to fall?
03:39Is it worth taking the risk?
03:41Because if you shoot a drone down, there's always going to be debris.
03:44We're starting to see startups, especially innovating in this space.
03:48So I spoke to one startup official who said he was testing drones that kind of carry a net up
03:54into the sky so that they can catch the offensive drone coming.
03:59So you're kind of taking it out without creating any debris.
04:02So there's a lot of experiments going on in this space.
04:05And as far as city defense systems, I mean, you write about some sort of mesh canopy.
04:10I know in some places near airports, they've trained actual birds of prey to go grab these drones and take
04:15them.
04:16What is working?
04:17Any positive signs that looks like they might hold promise?
04:22So for this piece, I spoke to a state official in Herson, and that's an extreme example.
04:27So this is a city that's on the front line in a country at war.
04:30They are experiencing 5,000 drone attacks every week, which is a huge number.
04:35However, the military there is able to shoot down 95%.
04:38But 95% of 5,000, that's still a lot of drones going through, and that's still a lot of
04:43damage.
04:44There's still a lot of people being killed.
04:46And so they've been experimenting.
04:49They're kind of at the forefront of experimenting with different techniques.
04:53So they've tried shooting them down.
04:55They've tried signal jammers.
04:57And what is interesting about Herson is the state official said the thing that has been most effective
05:03is these nets that sort of are draped over the road, draped over different places in the city.
05:09And that means when the drones come and fly in, they get entangled in the nets.
05:13And he said to me that that is the most practical solution available right now,
05:18which is really interesting because it's very low-tech.
05:20It does seem like drones are getting, yes, cheaper, smaller as well.
05:24And I wonder what problems that poses, the fact that you have systems maybe equipped for dealing with larger drones,
05:29but that's definitely not the direction it's trending in.
05:32Yeah, so I think what's interesting now is we're kind of used to talking about drones.
05:37But when you speak to people in the defense industry, they kind of complain about this term
05:41because, I mean, the term drone is so large at this point.
05:46We're talking about that is a term that encompasses, like, huge purpose-built weapons
05:51to very small devices that you can buy online and then you can adapt by attaching an explosive to them.
05:59So it really depends how you counter different drones really depends on what you're dealing with.
06:04And I think that's what's so difficult for different cities and governments as they start to think about this.
06:09So even if you look to Kyiv, and Kyiv is held up as the gold standard when it comes to
06:14protecting a city,
06:15you can't just say, oh, I'll have what they're using.
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