"We need to move fast," European defence commissioner Kubilius told AFP in an interview. "And we need to move, taking all the lessons from Ukraine and making this drone wall together with Ukraine."

Kubilius spoke to AFP after convening talks between some 10 EU defence ministers where they agreed on the urgent need to create an anti-drone defence "wall" after a string of Russian air incursions.

Ukraine -- which has developed a raft of capabilities to detect and shoot down Russian drone swarms more cheaply -- also participated and said it wants to be a part of the project.

"Ukraine built an acoustic sensor system when the war started in a very short period of time," Kubilius told AFP.

"So I think that we can do that also without long delay."

He said that he wanted to see Ukraine be a "real partner in development of this wall" and that he saw it as another way to integrate Kyiv into Europe's defence build-up.

The former Lithuanian prime minister said that there was not yet a firm notion of the costs of creating the project, but estimated it would cost in the range of "several billion euros, not hundreds of billions".

"More or less we understand what we need to develop. How much it will cost -- we shall see," he said.