Kremlin suspected of flying drones over Europe using Russian shadow fleet - Ars Technica
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Mysterious drone flights that disrupted major European airports and flew over NATO member military bases hosting US nuclear weapons may be the work of a coordinated Kremlin campaign launched from Russian-linked commercial ships.
That recent assessment from the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies used automatic identification system (AIS) maritime tracking data and other publicly available data to show how Russian-linked ships and “shadow fleet” vessels that transport sanctioned Russian oil were often located nearby during various drone incidents. The report suggests that the drone incidents—which impacted a dozen NATO member countries and Ireland between August 2024 and February 2026—also revealed the vulnerability of European air defenses against surveillance and harassment incursions by low-cost drones.
The IISS report identified 144 drone sightings over Europe during that time period that were unlikely to involve hobbyist recreational drones or drone activity related to the war in Ukraine. About 48 percent of the sightings took place over military bases, 26 percent happened over critical infrastructure such as ports and energy or industrial facilities, and 18 percent occurred over civilian airports. Most occurred at night or in the early morning hours before sunrise, and the drones themselves were typically described in media reports as resembling “professional” or “military-style” drones.
The think tank’s report does not claim that all drone sightings were attributable to Russian drones or were even real. But it describes the pattern of certain drone incursions as being “consistent with the Kremlin’s effort to probe allied defenses, test civilian-military response mechanisms and normalize low-level airspace violations below the threshold of an armed attack.”
The only drone incident directly attributed to Russia came in February 2026, when the Swedish military confirmed spotting and subsequently jamming a drone that took off from the Russian signals intelligence vessel Zhigulevsk in Swedish territorial waters. The Russian drone launch took place while the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its escort ships were nearby during a visit to Sweden. But despite being the only confirmed example, the incident showed that Russian-linked ships have the capability to launch drones at sea for potential surveillance purposes.
The drone lineup
One possible drone candidate for ship-launched operations is the Merlin-VR, a fixed-wing drone developed by Russia that can be launched by a shipboard catapult system and recovered by parachute. It has the necessary flight range to enable a number of identified drone incursion incidents, while being capable of night operations and having the ability to spend time loitering over targets, according to the IISS report.
Russian companies have also developed vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) drones, including the Legioner E29 Fixed-Wing Electric Drone, that require very little deck space for takeoff and landing operations. However, the IISS report suggests that homemade or commercial drones could have also been modified for a Kremlin drone campaign over Europe to prevent easy attribution to Russia.
A more common Russian drone model reported as being involved in the campaign is the Orlan-10, a fixed-wing drone with an operational range of 500 kilometers and battery endurance of up to 12 hours, along with maximum speeds between 90 kilometers per hour and 130 kilometers per hour. Such performance capabilities are “consistent with maritime launch from a vessel operating well beyond visual detection range of the European coastlines in question,” according to the IISS report.
The Orlan-10 range and payload capabilities are “consistent with stand-off collection against coastal and inland targets,” while also being able to fit within the deck space of a “mid-sized commercial vessel,” according to the IISS report. The Orlan-10 can carry payloads such as a module for spoofing signals from GPS and other global navigation satellite systems, along with a communications network monitoring module and various optical and thermal sensors.
The Orlan-10’s distinctive combustion engine noise is also consistent with the accounts of people who witnessed drone incursions that took place near RAF Lakenheath in the UK between November 20 and November 26 in 2024.
Drone sightings and lurking ships
The mystery drone incursions in November...