I don't know to what degree this is known to people outside Europe, but has been on the news over here for the last few months:
> drones aren’t just buzzing airports. They’re systematically surveilling military installations—often during sensitive operations
Now, if you live in the US or anywhere else outside Europe - please pause for a moment and see how it makes you feel to imagine having Russian drones hover over your military installations regularly, or other important places of your public infrastructure.
The political question here isn't why intelligence agencies aren't all over this but why politicians are deciding to not do anything about it.
A bunch of kids were able to figure out which ships were the source of these drones. Good work. I assume/hope this information wasn't new to intelligence agencies.
Relevant questions to ask here:
- were these ships not tracked and monitored 24/7 since they left Russian ports?
- in fact aren't all ships that leave those ports not tracked?
- isn't the journey of ships in the so-called shadow fleet documented in detail so that it is exactly known what's on board and who is buying it?
The answer to this is: of course that is all happening and known.
And the obvious one: why weren't these ships dragged to a port and completely dismantled to the last bolt?
Answer to that: that would be an escalation as these ships are in international waters and protected by maritime law. The obvious counter to that is that military aerial activity launched from foreign ships technically is an escalation in itself that could be considered a direct act of war.
I'm not going to speculate further on this. But it's obviously a highly political topic and not some kind of intelligence failure.
Here in the First Island Chain we've had Chinese drones buzzing our military installations since before COVID.
In Afghanistan, Yemen, or Somalia, the sound of drones buzzing overhead usually means an entire family is about to get murdered because ONE guy's pattern of behaviors pegged him as a "terrorist" in some computer system.
Europeans are just finally being shaken out of their false sense of security and don't know how to handle it.
>Now, if you live in the US or anywhere else outside Europe - please pause for a moment and see how it makes you feel to imagine having Russian drones hover over your military installations regularly, or other important places of your public infrastructure.
Something like that has happened in the US recently but Americans believed they were alien spacecraft as they tend to do and the whole thing got swallowed up in memes and Reddit threads.
Also apparently the US is ride or die with Putin now so Russia can't have done anything of the sort. Must have been aliens.
Are any of those drones being shot down? Is anything being done about it besides (AI-assisted) fear-mongering? That is the real question. If the drones are a problem, shoot/neutralize them and thank Russia for the free target-practice exercise.
It seems like the danger even bigger than Russia is government incompetence and the system of broken incentives where everyone does everything to appear busy but actually solving the problem.
If there's a drone there, and you don't want it there, the solution is obvious. It's obvious enough to any nutcase in the US with access to a shotgun (with various degrees of success, but at least they're got the right spirit). If nobody's taking out the proverbial shotgun then I have to assume the drones are not an actual problem and merely yet another excuse for busywork.
Edit: I am not saying to literally use a shotgun against them. But offensive solutions need to be developed and put to use; otherwise if we sit helpless now, what will we do when those drones evolve and start carrying offensive payloads? Fear-mongering and finding endless excuses about not doing anything is not going to help.
Of course the Russians will do this we helped Ukrainians attack the Russian nuclear fleet with drones they are most definitely organising some payback actions.
Be glad stuff isn't exploding yet, we are at war with Russia. Did people expect no damage would happen inside Europe?
Unfortunately this is not going to make a dent in the current policies. First of all, russia surveying military bases with drones, really? What else is new? Second, currently there is no way to shoot drones in EU due to variety of bullshit legal reasons.
So this article will change nothing. russia will continue blocking airports and EU won't do anything about it.
You don't have to respond to provocations in a simplistic way that doesn't really effect the enemy
Shooting the drones would probably have Russia laugh and send twice as many next time. Financial actions can help. Blocading their oil might finish things.
This just shows how amateurish the German state apparatus is when it comes to things like this. Maybe they're playing a game one level deeper and show them only what they want the Russians to see or see it as inevitable, I don't know. But I don't have high trust in our defense.
This is not just a German topic (several NATO countries had drone sightings) but a NATO topic. And probably also a US topic (some 'alien' activity recently).
And you are forgetting that there are still US troops in Germany. The US is not some passive bystander in this conflict but a very active part of the decision process here. And given that some of those military installations probably have US military in them, it's very much a topic that concerns them.
I don't think anyone believes an attack is imminent. But that kind of intelligence gathering is a pretty serious breach of security.
This weakness is a NATO wide problem and you can't ignore the role of the US in this apparent weakness. It's apparently pushing for de-escalation rather than further escalation. I think we'd know of Trump felt strongly about this. He'd be tweeting about this. His silence on this is suggestive.
European intelligence services assess the three documented ships as operating “with high confidence“ on behalf of Russian interests. Their movement profiles are “very conspicuous” and show “little evidence of commercial activity.”
---
...of course they know, but for whatever reason they didn't find a smoking gun so far (e.g. drones on the ships or drones taking off/landing) - or maybe they did but keep it to themselves.
> Official inspections were “symbolic”—not all containers opened
Amazes me that the Russians always seem to have the capacity for this sort of, I can't think of a clean word, let's inadequately say gamesmanship. When I'd have thought they have enough on their plate in Ukraine.
They have a strange attitude to the world and have had government funded people dedicated to attacking much of the world for decades. See this book review:
>“This must be the essence of our greatness. . . enemies everywhere” (p.20). The central thesis of Russia’s War on Everybody is that the Kremlin defines its enemies sweepingly, such that only a fraction of these “enemies” consider Russia to be their enemy. As Giles documents, “the Kremlin’s daily business” includes what some in the West would consider “acts of war” – poisoning dissidents, shooting down planes, election meddling, cyberattacks, and blatant political assassinations. Giles describes the Kremlin’s zero-sum worldview, in which anything benefitting others is a threat to Russia, and demonstrates that the Kremlin’s ambitions are far broader, and its methods more pervasive, than most realise. https://www.e-ir.info/2025/11/18/review-russias-war-on-every...
Anything necessary to keep up the sharades and appearance. He likes to play in the league of the big. Let's see for how long, until more cracks start showing up.
Good job! OSINT rules.
And regarding drones, surely any state actor may be doing this, however doing surveillance by drones over military bases is just so noob. That just points out they don't have a capacity to do reconnaissance with satellites, or they are doing something completely different. Probably making sure the target knows someone is watching, saying "We know where you have your sensitive spots".
They don't need satellites, they can surveil us close up with £200 drones and we don't do anything about it. It's like the story about the astronaut and the pencil.
I don't read every news source internationally however I always wonder just how often UK, German, US linked vessels, drones, etc are found within close proximity of Russia/China/Iran and how often they get reported.
If the same thing would happen to Russia you can be sure that Medvedev and Peskov would whine about it for months, including the occasional nuclear annihilation threat towards the 'collective West'.
Authoritarian regimes don’t act aggressively because they’re provoked; they act aggressively because projecting power and testing limits is part of how they survive internally. History is full of cases where no meaningful provocation existed at all.
Nazi Germany didn’t need Allied ships near its coast to invade Poland. Saddam Hussein didn’t need US aircraft nearby to invade Kuwait. Argentina didn’t need British naval pressure to seize the Falklands. Russia didn’t need NATO forces near Kyiv to annex Crimea in 2014 or launch a full invasion in 2022.
Tyrannies tend to frame any foreign presence as “provocation” after the fact, because it’s politically useful at home. Liberal democracies publish their movements precisely because they operate under scrutiny; authoritarian states act first and justify later.
Proximity makes for a convenient narrative, not a causal explanation.
It is at least 50% NATOs fault. Mexico and Canada are democratic and sovereign nations, but if either would decide to allow chinese or russian military bases to be built in their country, you can safely asume the US would not hesitate to brake international laws and take military actions on those sovereign countries. NATO expanded closer and closer to russias border, and you can't just expect for Russia to be okay with that, just as the US wouldn't be okay with that.
There is a massive anti-western infiltration operation being driven by Russia and it's allies, like Iran, Qatar and China. The biggest tragedy of the Russia-Russia hoax of Trumps first term is that people have become numb to something which was not really happening, but now is happening at an unprecedented scale.
I can only really speak for the media in Norway, but they spend almost no time covering this anymore and instead just print partisan American political things as if we are the 51st state and also a deep blue state. The media in Western Europe needs to stop acting like this, and start focusing on Europe and our challenges.
Just another example of the total insanity of Western Europe is that there is some expectation that USA will defend Europe when the majority of people in almost every single western European country has no interest in defending themselves. People expect US to send troops when there is no political support in any western European country to send troops. I love Europe, it's my home, but that is also why I don't think it's helpful to ignore the truth. Europe is the sick and dying man of the world. We need to turn this around.
The "Russia-Russia hoax" wasn't that hoaxy. Form Wikipedia on the Muller report:
>The report states that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was illegal and occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion", and was welcomed by the Trump campaign as it expected to benefit from such efforts. It also identifies multiple links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
I guess the US people just decided they were ok with a Russian backed president?
Europe is the sick and dying man is maybe overstating things. They've been understandably a bit anti-war following the centuries of war culminating in WW2.
A lot of these drone scares remind me of UFO flaps. There was one over London Gatwick not long ago and no one ever managed to photograph the thing as far as I can remember.
I'm sure NATO has drone swarms all over Russian bases right now, but that's the bit they miss. Part of a long tradition of trying out each other's defences.
kleiba|2 months ago
> drones aren’t just buzzing airports. They’re systematically surveilling military installations—often during sensitive operations
Now, if you live in the US or anywhere else outside Europe - please pause for a moment and see how it makes you feel to imagine having Russian drones hover over your military installations regularly, or other important places of your public infrastructure.
jillesvangurp|2 months ago
A bunch of kids were able to figure out which ships were the source of these drones. Good work. I assume/hope this information wasn't new to intelligence agencies.
Relevant questions to ask here:
- were these ships not tracked and monitored 24/7 since they left Russian ports?
- in fact aren't all ships that leave those ports not tracked?
- isn't the journey of ships in the so-called shadow fleet documented in detail so that it is exactly known what's on board and who is buying it?
The answer to this is: of course that is all happening and known.
And the obvious one: why weren't these ships dragged to a port and completely dismantled to the last bolt?
Answer to that: that would be an escalation as these ships are in international waters and protected by maritime law. The obvious counter to that is that military aerial activity launched from foreign ships technically is an escalation in itself that could be considered a direct act of war.
I'm not going to speculate further on this. But it's obviously a highly political topic and not some kind of intelligence failure.
TheChaplain|2 months ago
D_Alex|2 months ago
I am puzzled that the alleged ship-launched drone swarms were allegedly able to penetrate this far undetected.
BobaFloutist|2 months ago
CapricornNoble|2 months ago
Here in the First Island Chain we've had Chinese drones buzzing our military installations since before COVID.
In Afghanistan, Yemen, or Somalia, the sound of drones buzzing overhead usually means an entire family is about to get murdered because ONE guy's pattern of behaviors pegged him as a "terrorist" in some computer system.
Europeans are just finally being shaken out of their false sense of security and don't know how to handle it.
krapp|2 months ago
Something like that has happened in the US recently but Americans believed they were alien spacecraft as they tend to do and the whole thing got swallowed up in memes and Reddit threads.
Also apparently the US is ride or die with Putin now so Russia can't have done anything of the sort. Must have been aliens.
Nextgrid|2 months ago
It seems like the danger even bigger than Russia is government incompetence and the system of broken incentives where everyone does everything to appear busy but actually solving the problem.
If there's a drone there, and you don't want it there, the solution is obvious. It's obvious enough to any nutcase in the US with access to a shotgun (with various degrees of success, but at least they're got the right spirit). If nobody's taking out the proverbial shotgun then I have to assume the drones are not an actual problem and merely yet another excuse for busywork.
Edit: I am not saying to literally use a shotgun against them. But offensive solutions need to be developed and put to use; otherwise if we sit helpless now, what will we do when those drones evolve and start carrying offensive payloads? Fear-mongering and finding endless excuses about not doing anything is not going to help.
derelicta|2 months ago
[deleted]
sonorous_sub|2 months ago
otabdeveloper4|2 months ago
BSDobelix|2 months ago
Hint:
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-War-Against-Sweden-Submarine/d...
dragonelite|2 months ago
Be glad stuff isn't exploding yet, we are at war with Russia. Did people expect no damage would happen inside Europe?
egorfine|2 months ago
So this article will change nothing. russia will continue blocking airports and EU won't do anything about it.
tim333|2 months ago
>EU set to indefinitely freeze Russian assets
https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2025/1212/1548621-eu-russia/
You don't have to respond to provocations in a simplistic way that doesn't really effect the enemy
Shooting the drones would probably have Russia laugh and send twice as many next time. Financial actions can help. Blocading their oil might finish things.
codeduck|2 months ago
Denmark is also (I believe) looking into this.
I suspect that over the next year more and more EU countries will follow suit.
davedx|2 months ago
Citation?
RamblingCTO|2 months ago
jillesvangurp|2 months ago
And you are forgetting that there are still US troops in Germany. The US is not some passive bystander in this conflict but a very active part of the decision process here. And given that some of those military installations probably have US military in them, it's very much a topic that concerns them.
I don't think anyone believes an attack is imminent. But that kind of intelligence gathering is a pretty serious breach of security.
This weakness is a NATO wide problem and you can't ignore the role of the US in this apparent weakness. It's apparently pushing for de-escalation rather than further escalation. I think we'd know of Trump felt strongly about this. He'd be tweeting about this. His silence on this is suggestive.
flohofwoe|2 months ago
---
European intelligence services assess the three documented ships as operating “with high confidence“ on behalf of Russian interests. Their movement profiles are “very conspicuous” and show “little evidence of commercial activity.”
---
...of course they know, but for whatever reason they didn't find a smoking gun so far (e.g. drones on the ships or drones taking off/landing) - or maybe they did but keep it to themselves.
> Official inspections were “symbolic”—not all containers opened
...this might to be the core of the problem.
shermozle|2 months ago
pacifika|2 months ago
cs02rm0|2 months ago
Amazes me that the Russians always seem to have the capacity for this sort of, I can't think of a clean word, let's inadequately say gamesmanship. When I'd have thought they have enough on their plate in Ukraine.
tim333|2 months ago
>“This must be the essence of our greatness. . . enemies everywhere” (p.20). The central thesis of Russia’s War on Everybody is that the Kremlin defines its enemies sweepingly, such that only a fraction of these “enemies” consider Russia to be their enemy. As Giles documents, “the Kremlin’s daily business” includes what some in the West would consider “acts of war” – poisoning dissidents, shooting down planes, election meddling, cyberattacks, and blatant political assassinations. Giles describes the Kremlin’s zero-sum worldview, in which anything benefitting others is a threat to Russia, and demonstrates that the Kremlin’s ambitions are far broader, and its methods more pervasive, than most realise. https://www.e-ir.info/2025/11/18/review-russias-war-on-every...
yread|2 months ago
https://nitter.net/avivector/status/1998516670399152245#m
zelphirkalt|2 months ago
secult|2 months ago
adammarples|2 months ago
ktallett|2 months ago
flohofwoe|2 months ago
Protostome|2 months ago
Nazi Germany didn’t need Allied ships near its coast to invade Poland. Saddam Hussein didn’t need US aircraft nearby to invade Kuwait. Argentina didn’t need British naval pressure to seize the Falklands. Russia didn’t need NATO forces near Kyiv to annex Crimea in 2014 or launch a full invasion in 2022.
Tyrannies tend to frame any foreign presence as “provocation” after the fact, because it’s politically useful at home. Liberal democracies publish their movements precisely because they operate under scrutiny; authoritarian states act first and justify later.
Proximity makes for a convenient narrative, not a causal explanation.
juliusceasar|2 months ago
Both are still defending the action of Russia and blaming the EU and NATO for the Russian aggression.
sam_lowry_|2 months ago
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
littlecranky67|2 months ago
derelicta|2 months ago
[deleted]
paganel|2 months ago
[deleted]
TheChaplain|2 months ago
Russia withdraws to pre-2014 borders.
GuestFAUniverse|2 months ago
[deleted]
flanked-evergl|2 months ago
I can only really speak for the media in Norway, but they spend almost no time covering this anymore and instead just print partisan American political things as if we are the 51st state and also a deep blue state. The media in Western Europe needs to stop acting like this, and start focusing on Europe and our challenges.
Just another example of the total insanity of Western Europe is that there is some expectation that USA will defend Europe when the majority of people in almost every single western European country has no interest in defending themselves. People expect US to send troops when there is no political support in any western European country to send troops. I love Europe, it's my home, but that is also why I don't think it's helpful to ignore the truth. Europe is the sick and dying man of the world. We need to turn this around.
tim333|2 months ago
>The report states that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was illegal and occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion", and was welcomed by the Trump campaign as it expected to benefit from such efforts. It also identifies multiple links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
I guess the US people just decided they were ok with a Russian backed president?
Europe is the sick and dying man is maybe overstating things. They've been understandably a bit anti-war following the centuries of war culminating in WW2.
nephihaha|2 months ago
I'm sure NATO has drone swarms all over Russian bases right now, but that's the bit they miss. Part of a long tradition of trying out each other's defences.
blitzar|2 months ago
I'm pretty sure NATO doesnt have drone swarms all over Russian territory right now.
sam_lowry_|2 months ago
Russia OTOH has an aging fleet of spy satellites, and drones serve to intimidate as much as gather intelligence.
Xss3|2 months ago
The only reason iran and russia do is because theyre too broke to stack mq9 reapers.