Will businesses in Britain need to buy drone defence systems?

In fact, I genuinely believe that British legislators have to start lawmaking on this specific matter now. British businesses may one day have to pay for their own protection from drone attacks.

I can already hear the response. This is Britain, we do not do private air defence, but I am afraid we have to reconsider our collective belief in the invincibility of our island. Britain has long been within the range of Russian drones, so the battle we should be preparing for is not a form of ground invasion - it is a ‘battle in the sky’.

In his most recent interview with the Financial Times, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr  Zelenskyy decisively says that the war has moved to the air domain. And no country in Europe is immune to that, including Britain.

The British public is still some distance from this conversation. Perhaps geography has explained part of it for many centuries. Britain has become accustomed to the idea of the sea sitting between everyday life and continental war. That instinct remains powerful even as the technologies of attack have changed beyond recognition. Modern drones do not care about the English Channel.

They are cheap enough to launch in numbers, adaptable enough to evolve quickly and capable of reaching deep into civilian systems. The same broad family of technologies now threatens airfields, power infrastructure, ports and communications networks across Europe.

I am not predicting Russian drones over London next month. I am saying that Britain has time to decide what preparedness looks like before events narrow its choices. This is a privilege Ukraine lost.

Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, has spent months pushing his country towards greater war readiness. Britain, meanwhile, is trying to rebuild defence capacity after decades of contraction while arguing over where the money will come from. The latest Defence Investment Plan contains serious commitments, including billions for drones and autonomous systems, but every new promise runs into the same physical limit: money, equipment and trained people are finite.

Air defence makes that limit impossible to disguise. No government can provide continuous protection to every power facility, warehouse, port, communications node, factory, and transport hub. During a major attack, priorities are set. Some sites receive coverage. Others do not.

Russia has reached a similar conclusion from the other side of the war. In May, Moscow passed legislation allowing the central bank and certain financial institutions to operate their own drone-defence systems. The significance goes beyond Russia itself. Two countries engaged in a high-intensity drone war have both encountered the same pressure: national air defence cannot cover everything.

I am Ukrainian, and one of the most unsettling lessons of the war has been the speed at which an absurd idea becomes a management decision. The state cannot cover every site. Businesses are starting to ask how they can protect themselves, who is allowed to operate the equipment, and how much a week-long shutdown would cost. And I believe that Britain should pay attention to that sequence.

Britain should debate the implications before a British airport, energy operator or major industrial site is forced to improvise.

A power company could fund counter-drone systems around a substation. A port operator might pay for detection and interception capability. The owners of a data centre, defence plant, or major logistics hub could be expected to contribute to the site's protection.

Ukraine now has a formal mechanism through which businesses can create their own additional layer of air defence in coordination with the Armed Forces. The arrangement is regulated, structured and connected to the state system.

A recent guide by Yaroslav Filimonov, CEO of Kvertus, one of the companies in our UK-Ukraine TechExchange cohort, shows how far the conversation has moved.

Its title is deliberately blunt: Private air defence for business: how an enterprise can create its own layer of protection.

The most revealing part is how ordinary the process has become.

A company begins by identifying the asset at risk. People? Production? A warehouse? An energy node? Logistics? Management then calculates what an attack or prolonged shutdown could cost over a day, a week or a month. The budget covers equipment, staff, training, repairs, support and reserves. And after that comes the legal route.

Depending on the type of organisation, the company deals with the relevant authorities, applies for the necessary status and agrees how its group will interact with the air command. The final arrangement sets out operating zones, procedures, permitted equipment, storage conditions, financing and readiness requirements.

The business then forms the team. Employees, veterans and other qualified personnel can be involved. Military authorities define coordination and support training; the company manages staffing, rotas and pay.

The technical design is layered. Long-range detection. Mid-range tracking and assessment. Close protection using tools such as electronic warfare, interceptors or turrets.

Read that again from a British perspective. A chief executive sits down with lawyers, technical specialists and security staff to assess the cost of a drone strike, build a protection architecture and agree how it connects into national defence.

It sounds extreme because Britain is still discussing drones largely as a military procurement issue, whereas Ukraine is already dealing with them as an infrastructure issue.

There are obvious risks. Civilian counter-drone systems touch aviation safety, communications networks, target identification and the lawful use of force. Jamming can interfere with legitimate systems. Misidentification can have immediate consequences. An interceptor launched in the wrong place creates its own danger. Those risks require rules written in advance.

Britain should develop a tightly controlled framework for designated operators of critical and strategically important sites to finance the approved deployment of counter-drone protection.

The first layer could cover detection, radio-frequency sensing, hardened communications, early warning and passive protection. More active capabilities would need explicit authorisation, trained operators and defined command arrangements. Government would decide which organisations qualify, what equipment they can use and how data feeds into the wider national picture.

The financing question also deserves a more adult discussion. For decades, British governments have used subsidies, tax incentives and regulation to push private capital towards national priorities. Energy is the obvious example. Companies and households were encouraged to invest in solar generation because resilience, capacity and decarbonisation had value beyond a single balance sheet.

Critical infrastructure protection has the same public consequences. A port closed for a week affects supply chains. A disabled substation affects communities. An attack on a communications hub can disrupt emergency services and businesses far beyond the perimeter fence.

Government could offer matched funding or tax relief for approved protection at designated sites. Insurers should be involved early. Defence companies, infrastructure operators, regulators and Ukrainian specialists should help develop standards. Britain needs compatibility, shared information and clear responsibility before commercial demand creates a chaotic market.

Ukraine knows the cost of fragmentation. Fast-moving systems can become a zoo of incompatible equipment, separate data feeds and operators working to different assumptions. Distribution only becomes useful when the parts can coordinate under pressure.

A few years ago, a Ukrainian business owner might have discussed perimeter security, cameras, guards and fire systems. Today, some are considering radio-frequency detection, electronic warfare, interceptor drones and formal coordination with air command. The Kvertus guide estimates that paperwork can take up to three months, crew training up to six weeks and interceptor-operator preparation around four weeks, with several stages running in parallel.

British ministers should commission work now on privately financed, publicly controlled counter-drone protection for critical sites. Bring in infrastructure operators. Bring in insurers. Bring in aviation and communications regulators. Bring in Ukrainian companies that have already learned where these systems fail.

Then write the rules while Britain still has the luxury of arguing over them.

The first incoming swarm would be a very bad time to open a consultation.

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Andriy Dovbenko is the founder of UK-Ukraine TechExchange.

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

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