Russian navy launches drone campaign across Europe
Jennifer Griffin reports on a shadowy Russian fleet launching a drone campaign across Europe to spy on military bases and probe NATO air defenses. A report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies revealed 144 suspected drones near sensitive areas in Germany, France and the UK.
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As NATO allies prepare to meet in Turkey, high on their agenda will be the drone war and Russia's assessment of the NATO alliance.
Using a fleet of old sanctions-busting ships, Russia appears to have launched drones at European naval bases and airports to test the reaction time of NATO allies and their air defenses, according to a new report published by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, or IISS.
Between August 2024 and February 2026, 144 suspected drones were recorded near sensitive military and nuclear sites in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and Denmark, and over US air bases in the UK in November 2024.
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The French navy diverts a suspected Russian warship to the port of Marseille-Fos. (Manon Cruz/Reuters)
“There is no doubt in my mind that the Russians are using the shadow fleet as a platform to locate various types of drones near various European countries,” said Ret. Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who served as the commanding general of US Army Europe until 2018.
In Germany there were more than 1,000 suspicious aircraft sightings in 2025, over German defense companies and military bases where Ukrainian soldiers were training in Germany.
“What you are doing is assessing how the authorities will react, assessing how the public will respond, they will be shocked, they will blame the politicians and the authorities,” asked Elizabeth Braw of the Atlantic Council. “And they're testing maybe to see how we as European countries or how European countries can respond to a real crisis there.”
The drone strikes took place in the airspace of a dozen NATO states and Ireland, the report said, “forcing the repeated closure of major commercial airfields, disrupting military operations and encroaching on the edges of some of Europe's most critical defense areas.”
By 2025 mysterious drones were targeting military bases in the Netherlands and Belgium where the US is thought to base its B61-12 submarines and the French submarine base at Île Longue.
“It's a combination of intelligence,” Hodges said. “But also psychologically to create a lot of anxiety in people to scare them to put pressure on their governments not to support Ukraine.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at a press conference after meetings with the heads of the EU and Ireland, following an official ceremony to celebrate the inauguration of Ireland's eighth EU presidency, at Dublin Castle in Dublin on July 1, 2026. (Paul Faith / AFP via Getty Images)
Russia's drone campaign appears to be designed to probe the response times and decision-making limits of joint air defense and military command structures.
It also seeks to identify threats to critical infrastructure, including dual-use facilities, military facilities supporting Ukraine, and areas associated with the Alliance's nuclear deterrent.
Additionally, the campaign aims to impose economic and psychological costs on European communities by disrupting civilian air travel, reducing public confidence in aviation security, and promoting mistrust and panic. Finally, it seems intended to normalize airspace violations that remain below the threshold likely to trigger a direct Allied military response.
Those observations increased in late 2025, and forced the temporary closure of several European airports, including in Germany, Spain and Denmark.
Sweden is the only European country to directly blame Moscow after a drone launched into the sea from a Russian spy ship flew close to a French plane.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied allegations of sabotage and surveillance of Russia across Europe.
“What is the point of all this,” Putin asked reporters recently. “Name even one proven fact.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied allegations of sabotage and surveillance of Russia across Europe. (Vyacheslav PROKOFYEV / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
But the IISS tracked the locations of shadowy Russian ships used to evade sanctions and linked them to recent drone incidents, concluding that Russia could use the ships as a launch pad for drones while creating denial. Drones usually don't trigger radar.
On Jan. 3, 2025, the Russian navy ship Arctica sailed off the Danish coast, while 20 drones flew over the port of Koege, Denmark, before disappearing into the sea.
On September 22, drone sightings led to the closure of Copenhagen Airport. The IISS discovered several shadow ships were in the area at the time, including Arctica and Boracay.
And not only in Europe. A number of unexplained drone sightings have also occurred in the US. a few years ago.
In December 2023 at Virginia's Joint Base an unauthorized Langley-Eustis aircraft appeared in the sky above the base for 17 straight days, eluding military tracking and forcing the Pentagon to bring in special assets – including a NASA WB-57 high-altitude aircraft – to investigate.
In March drones flew near Barkdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, home of the B-52 H Stratofortress bomber, where the drones came in a pattern that suggested they were trying to avoid detection of the pilot or operator. The lights on the drones suggested that the operators might be checking safety responses on the ground.
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The panic of seeing drones near critical infrastructure along the east coast of the United States in late 2024 led the Trump administration to order that the investigation be released shortly after it was launched to ease public concerns, concluding that the drones were mostly hobbyists and that there was no evidence of an external threat related to most of the reported sightings.
The IISS says that these are not hobbyists who threaten NATO allies in Europe, which could be a serious crime to launch drones from shadow ships at sea.
