• Interior ministers of six NATO countries neighbouring Russia have decided to build a “drone wall” to protect their borders.

• The wall stretching from Norway to Poland will use drones and other technologies, which would protect against provocations from unfriendly countries and to prevent smuggling.

• The interior ministers of Finland, Norway, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania taking part in the drone wall project met in the Latvian capital of Riga.

• The plan is still in its formative stages and there is no concrete timeline when it will be implemented.

• Russia’s war against Ukraine has highlighted the importance of drones, with both sides using them in attacks.

What is NATO?

• North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed in 1949 with the signing of the Washington Treaty. 

• NATO is a security alliance of 32 countries from North America and Europe. 

• In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

• The other member countries are: Greece and Turkey (1952), Germany (1955), Spain (1982), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017), North Macedonia (2020), Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024).

• NATO’s fundamental goal is to safeguard the Allies’ freedom and security by political and military means.

• NATO enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.

• NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty — Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.

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