The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has put out a report which claims that an extensive Russian drone campaign over Europe probed military bases housing U.S. nuclear weapons and other sensitive sites, exposing gaps in allied air defenses and an inadequate strategy to deal with the incursions. Russia-linked ships, including vessels from its so-called “shadow fleet” of clandestine vessels, were used to launch drones as part of the Kremlin’s wider “unconventional war on Europe,” the report alleged, according to Stars & Stripes. During the campaign, drones flew with “substantial impunity across European airspace—representing both a series of tactical successes for the Kremlin and a strategic failure of allied air defense,” IISS said.
The report names Ramstein Air Base in Germany, along with bases involved in NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission such as Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands, as having been surveilled in an operation designed to map allied vulnerabilities and probe for weaknesses in military-civilian decision-making. Volkel is located deep inland. To reach it from the sea, drones would have had to bypass coastal naval dockyards and other air bases, demonstrating “a highly motivated and deliberate effort to survey NATO’s nuclear-deterrence infrastructure,” IISS said.
