A report by the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research (IISS) assesses that it’s ‘extremely probably’ lots of current drone incidents all through Europe had been ordered by Moscow as a part of a wider hybrid marketing campaign towards NATO.
The investigation focuses on incidents happening between August 2024 and February 2026, together with incursions into the airspace of 13 particular person international locations. All however one in all these nations, the exception being Eire, are members of NATO.
Among the many incursions documented within the report are these which focused U.S. Air Pressure websites within the UK – which The Aviationist coated in depth throughout three articles – in addition to the incident over the French Navy ballistic missile submarine base at Île Longue.
This report assesses that it’s extremely probably the Kremlin carried out a coordinated Uninhabited Aerial Automobile (UAV) marketing campaign over Europe between August 2024 and February 2026, spanning a dozen NATO states and Eire.
It is usually probably that Russian-linked vessels and the shadow… pic.twitter.com/pGRtWRHPtE
— IISS Information (@IISS_org) July 2, 2026
By corroborating the varied experiences of drone incursions with knowledge referring to ships which can be recognized or suspected to belong to Russia’s shadow fleet, the IISS has named a number of vessels specifically that it believes had been accountable for launching and/or directing the drones.
It notes that the cargo vessel Hav Dolphin (IMO 9073854), investigated by each Germany and the Netherlands after drone incursions within the spring of 2025, was in actual fact docked in Hull, UK, whereas British and American authorities had been coping with the drone sightings over army websites in November 2024.
Suspected drone provider / cargo ship HAV DOLPHIN entered Baltic Sea through Kiel kanal, final port Antwerp. Said vacation spot Vasa, FI
The Russian crewed ship is suspected if being behind drone flights over army installations in NW Germany just a few months in the past. pic.twitter.com/i4QfsyLyzi
— auonsson (@auonsson) August 24, 2025
On the similar time, the tanker Seasons I (IMO 9308950) travelled eastbound by way of the Straits of Dover and routed roughly parallel to the southern coast of East Anglia the place RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and quite a lot of different delicate U.S. and UK army services are situated.
Remark from nameless U.S. officers on the time of the incursions recommended that the drones had been of a sophistication past what could be anticipated for commercially obtainable civilian drones. As we famous, the incursions over these vital U.S. bases got here simply days after then President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the lengthy awaited all-clear to make use of lengthy vary missiles to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.
In its govt abstract of the prolonged report, the IISS argues that whereas not each UAV incident throughout this era is prone to have been linked to Russia, “the combination sample of UAV sightings can’t be adequately defined by misidentification, hobbyist exercise or opportunistic harassment alone.”
Cautious Scrutiny
There isn’t any smoking gun that definitively proves Russia’s involvement, and not one of the nations affected in these drone incursions have but instantly pointed their finger in Russia’s route, although IISS researchers have recommended that these international locations have given their tacit approval of the report. “Each authorities we spoke to stated they’d welcome the report being revealed,” stated Charlie Edwards, Senior Fellow for Technique & Nationwide Safety.
With out the smoking gun, some have questioned the report’s findings. Dronewatch Europe have stated: “The conclusions are putting. Nevertheless, additionally they deserve cautious scrutiny.”
“The report doesn’t current bodily proof linking any particular drone to any particular vessel. No launch has been noticed, no command hyperlinks have been intercepted, no wreckage has been recovered, no credible video footage was recorded, and no telemetry or forensic knowledge has been launched tying a drone to a Russian ship.”
New IISS report revives ‘Russian shadow fleet drone’ idea, however fails to offer proof pic.twitter.com/efG2r4BgCD
— Dronewatch Europe (@DronewatchEU) July 2, 2026
This forensic knowledge is, after all, troublesome for a non-state actor to acquire. Main radar knowledge and superior intelligence (together with the usage of electro-optical sensors, indicators intelligence (SIGINT), and human intelligence (HUMINT)) capabilities could be of paramount significance to gathering the definitive information in circumstances like this.
Whether or not the succesful intelligence companies – in lots of circumstances, world main – of the nations concerned have in actual fact collected these information is unclear. Whereas one may argue that the very fact no nation has stepped ahead and set out a complete case for Russia’s involvement, additionally it is true that doing so may prejudice a number of the capabilities and/or sources of intelligence obtainable to them. Proving Russia’s guilt within the public area may not outweigh the worth of those intelligence property.
The @RoyalAirForce has not too long ago deployed its Counter-Uncrewed Aerial System to Belgium in response to rogue drones interrupting flights at Brussels Airport. This comes only a month after the system was deployed to Denmark.
The RAF’s C-UAS functionality is named ORCUS, which is a… pic.twitter.com/bS6buQuCDc
— Leonardo Electronics (@LDO_Electronics) November 11, 2025
Dronewatch’s personal investigation into 61 drone sightings throughout Europe in 2025 discovered that, in lots of circumstances, “reported drones turned out to be completely strange plane, helicopters, stars, planets or different explainable phenomena. In quite a few circumstances there was merely no proof {that a} drone had ever been current.”.
The IISS report does contact on these earlier investigations, although it argues that “In an working atmosphere the place European detection functionality was demonstrably inadequate to reliably monitor low-altitude, non-cooperative UAVs, a excessive non-confirmation charge is the anticipated end result no matter whether or not the sightings had been real.”
“A excessive false-positive charge in public reporting is, if something, analytically in line with Russian operational design: engineering an atmosphere of ambiguity wherein real incursions are troublesome to differentiate from noise is itself a characteristic of the marketing campaign,” the report continues.
Whether or not any of the drones had been in actual fact linked to Russia or not, the IISS states that Europe’s counter-UAS (C-UAS) technique has not stored up with the menace now posed by these techniques: “detection is uneven, authorized authorities are fragmented, response choices are sometimes disproportionate, and attribution stays too gradual to help well timed deterrence.”
