Russian Ships Tied To Drone Incursions

Late last year, drones turned up over three air bases in the Netherlands and Belgium: Volkel, Eindhoven and Kleine-Brogel. They are not ordinary military sites. All three hold US nuclear warheads under NATO's nuclear-sharing programme, the arrangement under which allied countries host American weapons that can be used only with Washington's authorisation.

That puts them among the most sensitive installations in Western Europe. The International Institute for Strategic Studies now argues the flights were part of something larger: 144 reported drone incidents across 13 European countries between August 2024 and February 2026, which it judges highly likely to be a Kremlin-directed campaign (IISS, New York Times).

The pattern is credible. The public proof is thinner.

Shadow Fleet, Double Use

The IISS case begins with Russia's shadow fleet: tankers and cargo ships using opaque ownership structures and flags of convenience to move Russian oil around EU sanctions. The same murkiness that makes an oil cargo hard to trace could also make a ship useful for operations Moscow wants to deny.

IISS names two vessels, Hav Dolphin and Seasons 1, and links them to drone episodes near British and German military sites (BBC, Spiegel). The Dutch and Belgian sightings reportedly coincided with Russian-linked ships going dark in the North Sea, meaning they switched off tracking transponders that normally broadcast a vessel's position (Guardian).

But this is where the story becomes less tidy. German federal police and Belgian forces searched Hav Dolphin and found nothing conclusive (t-online). No government has published radar tracks, radio-frequency intercepts or recovered drone parts tying a particular aircraft to a particular ship. IISS has produced an intelligence-style assessment, not a courtroom file.

The Hard Part Is Where the Ship Is

Europe's ability to act depends on a line drawn at sea. Inside territorial waters, roughly 22 km from the coast, a state has full sovereignty. If a foreign ship launches drones there, it loses its right to innocent passage, the legal principle that allows vessels to pass peacefully through another state's waters, and it can be stopped (UNCLOS).

Outside that line, in the exclusive economic zone or on the high seas, the legal position changes. A ship answers mainly to the state whose flag it flies. A merchant vessel sitting just beyond territorial waters is very difficult to board on suspicion alone, even if intelligence services believe it was carrying drones minutes earlier. Suspicion may be enough for a ministerial briefing. It is not always enough for a lawful boarding.

That matters for Ireland too, even outside NATO. The same European maritime rules that apply in the North Sea also shape what smaller coastal states can do when a ship behaves suspiciously near critical infrastructure or undersea routes. The gap between what security agencies think and what police or naval forces can legally prove is not a Brussels abstraction.

The EU's strongest tools work at chokepoints rather than in open water. The Council of the EU, where member-state ministers make binding decisions, has sanctioned hundreds of shadow-fleet vessels through its 16th and 17th sanctions packages, cutting them off from port access and maritime services (Council 16th, Council 17th). NATO shares intelligence and coordinates deterrence, but says responsibility for countering hybrid threats rests first with the country being targeted (NATO). A drone over a Dutch air base is, before anything else, a Dutch problem.

Ready, Fragmented, or Guessing

European readiness is uneven. Finland is closest to having a settled answer. Its Border Guard, which also has a defence role, is receiving €44 million for counter-drone systems along the eastern border and coast, including jammers and interceptor drones (Yle). Finland is also leading a Baltic maritime surveillance operation using unmanned aircraft and satellite tracking (Rajavartiolaitos).

Germany is more complicated. Security for civilian infrastructure sits with the Länder, the federal states. The coast guard is a coordination structure rather than a single force. Constitutional limits on domestic military deployment mean the Bundeswehr can track a drone but cannot easily shoot it down except in narrowly defined circumstances (Art. 87a GG).

Denmark offers the useful warning. After drone reports near Copenhagen airport, police reviewed radar, CCTV and witness evidence and could not confirm that drones had actually been present. The political language had moved faster than the evidence could carry (Berlingske, Ground News).

Europe can often see a pattern forming. It cannot yet reliably stop it. In some cases, it still cannot prove the pattern is real.