Russia-Linked Tankers May Have Sent Drones Over Europe’s Most Sensitive Military Sites. At Least 144 Times

Russia is suspected of using tankers as launch platforms for drones flown over sensitive sites, including nuclear facilities in Europe, according to a new report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) published on July 2.

The suspected campaign was aimed at identifying weaknesses in European air defense systems, the report says.

According to the IISS, researchers analyzed 144 drone incursions into the airspace of 12 NATO countries and Ireland between August 2024 and February 2026.

The incidents were part of a wider drone activity campaign across Europe, with Germany, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands among the most affected countries.

The report says European air defense systems face particular challenges in detecting low-flying, slow, and small targets such as drones. Many of Europe’s systems were originally designed to counter missiles, bombers, and combat aircraft rather than small UAVs.

Some incidents caused major disruptions, including temporary airport closures. Drones also entered the territory of strategic defense sites, including bases hosting US nuclear weapons and a French ballistic missile submarine base.

Roughly half of all recorded drone incidents involved military facilities, according to the researchers. IISS assessed that the campaign was likely designed to test and map European air defense capabilities.

European governments have largely avoided directly blaming Russia, but the authors of the report argue that the link is clear.

“We consider it likely that Russia-linked vessels and its shadow fleet were used as maritime platforms for launching or recovering drones, or as signal relay nodes,” said report co-author Charlie Edwards.

He also said the absence of similar activity in the Mediterranean could be explained by stronger surveillance capabilities there, especially maritime monitoring and the presence of US submarines. According to Edwards, moving unnoticed—and especially launching drones—in that region would be significantly harder.

Another co-author, Louis Byrne, said several governments are still investigating the incidents. He added that drone activity has almost disappeared since inspections and checks of shadow fleet vessels began earlier this year.

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The report was sharply critical of Europe’s response, describing it as “uneven” and “fragmented,” with slow attribution and “often disproportionate” response options.

Previously, Estonian border guards reportedly recorded what may be the first known case of a civilian Russian tanker moving through the Gulf of Finland with a Kord heavy machine gun on board. The vessel was identified as Marshal Vasilevsky, a Gazprom LNG tanker that transports liquefied gas from mainland Russia to the Kaliningrad region.

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