Russia's war against Ukraine has underscored the importance of air defense as Kyiv seeks additional systems and missiles from the West to protect its cities, troops and infrastructure against daily raids, the publication writes.

But according to people familiar with confidential defense plans drawn up last year, NATO states are able to provide less than 5 percent of air defense capacity deemed necessary to protect its members in Central and Eastern Europe against a full-scale attack.

A high-ranking NATO diplomat said that while the ability to defend against missiles and air strikes was "a major part of the plan to defend eastern Europe from invasion. Right now, we don't have that."

In a major defense review last year, the U.K. government described the "challenge of protecting . . . against attack from the skies" as being "its most acute for over 30 years."

Russia's heavy use of missiles, drones and highly destructive Soviet-era glide bombs in Ukraine has added urgency to NATO members' efforts to ramp up defense spending after decades of military budget cuts.

Some European leaders and military officials have said that Russia could have the capability to attack a NATO member by the end of the decade.

States taking action

The failure of European NATO states in recent months to provide additional air defense equipment to Ukraine has underscored the continent's limited stocks of the expensive and slow-to-manufacture systems.

This has prompted a series of overlapping initiatives to try to find long-term solutions. Last year, Germany launched its Sky Shield initiative with more than a dozen other EU countries to develop a shared air defense system using U.S. and Israeli-developed technology, FT writes.

However, France has publicly criticized the proposal and offered a rival concept backed by a smaller number of allies.

Last week, Poland and Greece called on the European Commission to help develop and potentially assist in the financing of a pan-European air defense system. Something Commission President Ursula von der Leyen indicated she would support.

Some EU capitals have suggested raising common debt to fund defense projects.

In a letter sent to von der Leyen, Greek and Polish prime ministers Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Donald Tusk described air defense as a "major vulnerability in our security," adding that the war in Ukraine has "[taught] us lessons that we can no longer ignore."

The proliferation of cheap, long-range attack drones, as used by Russia against Ukraine, has added to these concerns.

A NATO official said that "capability targets and defense plans are classified" but added that air and missile defenses "are top priorities" and that "stockpiles have been reduced."

"So we are confident that NATO deterrence against Russia remains strong," they added.

Shortage of air defense systems in Europe

Immediately after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. deployed a Patriot battery air defense system to protect an airport in southern Poland that became a hub for shipping Western weapons to Kyiv.

But officials say NATO members have so few such systems to spare that their capacity to deploy any more beyond their own territories is severely limited.

In the UK, the Royal Navy's six Type 45 destroyers are equipped with ballistic missile defense systems, but the vessels have been dogged by design flaws, the Financial Times report.

The British army also has six state-of-the-art Sky Sabre ground-based air defense systems, but their missile interceptors only have a range of about 40 kilometers, and two of the systems are overseas.

"The air defense capability of the U.K. is entirely inadequate," said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London.

Full integration of Europe's various air defense systems could help compensate for the shortfall by creating a dense mesh of sensors and interceptors across the continent.

But "attempts to update NATO's command and control infrastructure for air defense have never gotten off the ground," Watling said.

NATO foreign ministers are set to meet in Prague on Thursday for two days of talks aimed at preparing for the NATO Washington Summit to be held in July. Strengthening Europe's defenses will be at the heart of talks.

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