TESTIMONY: 18 Months of Russian Drones Over European Nuclear Sites — The Kremlin's Espionage Unmasked

Introduction: The Russian shadow hung over European nuclear assets for 18 months

A revelation that changes the nature of the threat

On July 2, 2026, The Guardian published an investigation documenting a reality that European governments preferred to keep quiet: for 18 months, Russia conducted a systematic drone surveillance campaign targeting European nuclear sites. 144 incidents were analyzed across more than a dozen countries. U.S. Air Force bases in the United Kingdom, French nuclear submarines in Brest, American nuclear weapons depots in Belgium and the Netherlands: the campaign was exhaustive, methodical, and conducted with what researchers describe as "substantial impunity."

The campaign is believed to have been orchestrated by the GRU, Russia's foreign military intelligence service. It exploited vessels from the Russian shadow fleet as drone launch platforms — commercial vessels with transponders switched off, "sailing dark" off European coasts. These vessels reportedly served as launch, recovery, and signal relay platforms for reconnaissance drones. The Orlan-10, a Russian drone with a range of 300 miles and an autonomy of approximately 12 hours, is identified as one of the aircraft used in this campaign.

A European response described as inadequate

What is as striking as the campaign itself is the European response to it. Authorities were, according to the researchers, "overwhelmed and confused." Drones were neither captured nor shot down. A British police helicopter attempted to track drones but withdrew for safety reasons. The use of an anti-drone laser was considered but "ultimately not undertaken." The result: a strategic gap in NATO's air defenses was exposed in broad daylight — or rather, in the darkness of night, where Russian drones were navigating.

European governments were reluctant to publicly accuse Russia — out of fear of escalation, legal uncertainty, or concern about revealing the full extent of their own gaps. That reluctance helped the campaign to continue for a year and a half before shadow fleet vessel seizures by European navies in 2026 began to reduce the incidents.

The sites targeted: a map of Russian nuclear ambition

RAF Lakenheath, Kleine-Brogel, Volkel — the homes of American bombs in Europe

The nuclear sites targeted by the Russian surveillance campaign are not ordinary facilities. RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, United Kingdom, is a base prepared to host American nuclear weapons — and drone activity was detected precisely before the first American nuclear weapons were installed at the base in July 2025. As if the GRU knew before even local residents that weapons were in transit.

Kleine-Brogel in Belgium and Volkel in the Netherlands are the two bases where American B61 gravity bombs are stored, intended to be dropped by allied combat aircraft in the event of a nuclear conflict. The surveillance of these bases by Russian drones fits a direct military logic: mapping security procedures, identifying vulnerabilities, pinpointing guard rotation patterns and alert response times. This is operational military planning, not simple diplomatic espionage.

Île Longue and France's deterrent force

Île Longue, in Brittany, is the home port of France's nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines. Five drones were detected above this facility in December 2025. France's nuclear deterrent, which constitutes the second Western nuclear pillar after the United States, thus became a surveillance target of the Russian campaign. In the context where France was discussing extending its nuclear umbrella to other European countries, this surveillance takes on an even more significant strategic dimension.

RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, the operational base from which American B-2 bombers flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, was also overflown. Several other American bases in England figure in the 144 incidents analyzed. The geography of the surveillance reveals a consistent Russian preoccupation: mapping the entirety of the American tactical nuclear infrastructure deployed across Europe.

The shadow fleet as an espionage infrastructure

Tankers with switched-off transponders as mother ships

One of the most striking aspects of this campaign is its deployment mechanism. Russian drones would not have taken off from Russian territory — their range would not permit coverage of all the sites targeted in Western Europe. They were reportedly launched from shadow fleet vessels: tankers and bulk carriers navigating with their AIS transponders switched off, invisible on civilian maritime surveillance systems, discreetly positioned off European coasts.

The Boracay incident illustrates this concretely. In September 2025, drone sightings in Copenhagen's airspace forced the airport's closure. Four shadow fleet tankers were nearby, including the Boracay. This vessel was seized four days later by French commandos, then released a few days after that. On board: a Chinese captain and two Russian nationals employed by the Moran Security Group. This is not a coincidence — it is an operation whose actors have been identified.

Shadow fleet seizures as a belated countermeasure

European navies began in 2026 to seize shadow fleet vessels more systematically — and The Guardian investigation notes that drone surveillance incidents have "diminished since European navies began seizing those vessels in 2026." This is direct confirmation of the link between the mother ships and the drone campaign. It is also a signal that Europe has a concrete lever to reduce this threat: monitoring, intercepting, and seizing shadow fleet vessels before they can launch their drones.

But this countermeasure is belated. For 18 months, shadow fleet vessels were able to operate with relative impunity in European waters. The complex legal procedures surrounding seizures on the high seas, combined with political reluctance to escalate with Russia, created an operating window that the GRU exploited methodically. It is a textbook case of how legal complexity and political caution can be exploited by an adversary without scruples.

The presumed objectives of Russian surveillance

Sabotage, disinformation, or operational preparation?

The researchers who analyzed the campaign identify several possible objectives, not mutually exclusive. Pure nuclear surveillance — mapping the location, security, and capabilities of adversary nuclear sites — is the most obvious objective. Mapping military logistics and supply chains along observed routes is a second documented objective. Preparation for potential sabotage operations against critical infrastructure is a third scenario cited by European intelligence services.

But the psychological dimension should not be underestimated. A surveillance campaign of this scale, even if it never produces kinetic action, sends a message to European governments: "We know where your most precious weapons are, and you cannot stop us." This is psychological warfare — a capability demonstration designed to sow doubt about the security of allied nuclear arsenals, and to complicate Western deterrence calculations.

The link to documented Russian hybrid warfare in Europe

This campaign does not exist in isolation. It is part of a documented fabric of Russian hybrid warfare across Europe: infrastructure sabotage (undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, pipelines, railways), arson at logistics warehouses, targeted disinformation against public opinion, cyberattacks against state institutions. The nuclear surveillance campaign is the most sensitive layer of this set of operations — the one that touches strategic deterrence and the nuclear balances that have guaranteed peace since 1945.

The ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations) has documented in several reports the extent of Russian hybrid operations in Western Europe since 2022. The Guardian's revelation on nuclear drones adds a qualitatively new dimension to this picture: for the first time, the Kremlin is directly associated with systematic surveillance of Western nuclear weapons deployed on the continent. This is a line that even the Cold War did not always dare cross as openly.

Possible responses: between managed escalation and defensive reinforcement

Legal and operational options against spy drones

What can Europe do against Russian drones overflying its nuclear sites? The options are more limited than one might expect. Shooting down a drone over national territory is legally possible but politically delicate — it creates a precedent, exposes the state that does it to accusations of destroying "civilian property" if the drone is registered under a commercial flag, and risks recovering debris that reveals sensitive technical information. Jamming drones is an option, but wide-spectrum anti-drone jammers can also disrupt surrounding civilian communications.

The most effective short-term response proved to be seizing the mother ships — the shadow fleet tankers. This maritime approach, which intervenes before the drones are even launched, is less legally and politically exposed. It worked: incidents have diminished in 2026. But it requires permanent maritime surveillance of European waters — itself a considerable investment in intelligence resources and naval presence.

Toward anti-drone defence of nuclear sites

The revelation of the Russian campaign has accelerated discussions in allied capitals about deploying anti-drone systems around sensitive nuclear sites. Technologies exist — directed energy lasers, interceptor drones, targeted jamming systems — but their large-scale deployment around all NATO nuclear facilities represents a colossal investment. It also requires modification of the legal frameworks in some countries, which currently do not allow the military to shoot down drones over national territory without civilian authority authorisation.

The United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have all engaged in discussions with their NATO partners on new nuclear site protection procedures. These discussions are particularly urgent for bases like RAF Lakenheath and Kleine-Brogel, where American nuclear weapons are deployed under dual-key arrangements involving both American forces and host governments.

The implications for European nuclear deterrence

When espionage erodes the credibility of deterrence

Nuclear deterrence rests on a balance of calculated uncertainty: the adversary must not know precisely where the weapons are, how they are protected, or what the response timelines are. If the Russian surveillance campaign has provided the GRU with precise information about security procedures, guard rotation patterns, and the vulnerabilities of European nuclear sites, it has potentially eroded this protective uncertainty. That is the most troubling dimension of The Guardian's revelation.

Nuclear deterrence experts emphasise that deterrence credibility is not only a question of capability — it is also a question of the perception of invulnerability. An adversary who believes it has mapped the weaknesses of the opposing nuclear arsenal may calculate differently the risk of an operation against those facilities. Without going as far as a preemptive strike — an extreme scenario — better knowledge of allied nuclear sites may encourage more targeted sabotage or intimidation operations.

The revelation as an alarm signal for reforms to come

The publication of The Guardian's investigation is not merely a journalistic act. It is political pressure for the governments concerned to take concrete measures. By making public the 144 incidents, the targeted countries, the modus operandi, and the inadequate responses, researchers and journalists are forcing confidential discussions out of classified settings and into the public space. This is democratic accountability pressure on institutions that preferred silence.

In the weeks following publication, parliamentary questions were tabled in the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Defence ministries were forced to respond publicly for the first time about their anti-drone protection protocols for nuclear sites. This process — uncomfortable for governments — is healthy for democracy and necessary for security. Parliamentary and public oversight is one of the mechanisms that forces reforms which bureaucracies prefer to defer.

Denmark, Ireland, and the incidents that almost went unnoticed

Copenhagen airport closed by Russian drones

In September 2025, drone sightings in Copenhagen's airspace forced the temporary closure of the Danish capital's airport. The incident was attributed to the presence of four shadow fleet tankers in surrounding waters, including the Boracay. This closure of a major civilian airport because of suspected Russian military drones is one of the most tangible moments of Russian hybrid intrusion into the daily lives of European societies. This is not only a matter of military security — it is a concrete disruption of civilian life, measurable in flight delays and economic disruption.

The fact that the Boracay was then seized by French commandos, released, and found to contain a Chinese captain and two Russian nationals from the Moran Security Group reveals the complexity of the actors involved in the shadow fleet. This is not an exclusively Russian operation: it mobilises flags of convenience, private security firms, and multinational crews. Untangling these networks is long and complex intelligence work that European agencies have begun but not completed.

The Irish incident after Zelensky's visit

The symbolic dimension of certain incidents deserves to be highlighted. In December 2025, four drones were reportedly observed above an Irish naval vessel near the Irish coast — on the very evening after an official visit by Volodymyr Zelensky to Ireland. If this timing is deliberate — and nothing allows us to rule it out — it represents a Russian message addressed directly to a country that had just hosted the Ukrainian president: "We are watching you too." This is targeted psychological warfare, adapted to the political events of the moment.

Ireland, historically a neutral country, is not a NATO member. But its geographical proximity to the United Kingdom and its transatlantic undersea communications cables make it an actor in critical European infrastructure. Russian attention to Ireland in this context is not incidental — it reflects a precise understanding of the geography of European infrastructure vulnerabilities that the GRU is seeking to map exhaustively.

The silence of governments and its costs

Why capitals preferred to stay quiet

European governments' reluctance to publicly accuse Russia of these incidents has several explanations. First, formal attribution of an espionage operation requires a level of evidence that classified intelligence allows achieving but that diplomats do not want to expose publicly. Formally accusing Russia means revealing intelligence sources and methods. Second, a formal accusation demands a formal response — and the question of what an appropriate response to nuclear site surveillance would look like creates potential escalation that nobody wanted to manage.

Third, the concerned governments had to face an embarrassing reality: their own protection systems had failed. Admitting that Russian drones were overflying RAF Lakenheath or Île Longue with impunity for months, without being intercepted or captured, means admitting a massive, politically costly security gap. Silence was the path of least resistance in the short term — at the price of accumulated risk in the long term.

The cost of strategic ambiguity

The strategic ambiguity chosen by European governments in the face of the Russian drone campaign has a documented strategic cost. It allowed the campaign to continue uninterrupted for 18 months. It reinforced the GRU's belief that this type of hybrid operation could be conducted without significant consequences. And it delayed the doctrinal reforms and anti-drone protection investments that could have reduced the exposure of nuclear sites.

The cost-benefit ratio of this ambiguity is clearly negative. The Guardian's revelation — and the parliamentary questions that will follow — shows that chosen opacity ultimately protects nobody. It merely delays the moment of reckoning while accumulating risk in the interim. Democracies need transparency about the hybrid threats they face — not to reassure their adversaries, but to mobilise the resources needed for their response.

Conclusion: Europe needs an anti-drone doctrine equal to the threat

18 months too late — but not too late to act

The Russian nuclear surveillance campaign lasted 18 months. It involved 144 incidents across more than a dozen countries. It targeted NATO's most sensitive weapons — the components of nuclear deterrence that have guaranteed peace since the end of the Second World War. The European response was insufficient, belated, and politically inhibited. That is a severe assessment, but it is the honest one that The Guardian's investigation imposes.

The good news — if one can call it that — is that this revelation comes at a moment when Europe is rearming, strengthening its maritime surveillance capabilities, and revising its critical infrastructure protection doctrines. The British DIP, German rearmament, Polish and Baltic investments: all these processes now include a response to Russian hybrid warfare of which the nuclear drone campaign is the most serious manifestation. The awakening has happened — let us hope it is not too late.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My sources and their limits

This analysis relies primarily on The Guardian's investigation published on July 2, 2026, an established quality source but representing a single investigative journalistic source. The figures of 144 incidents and the identified sites are drawn from this source and the research cited within it. I do not have access to the classified documents of the concerned governments. The attributions to the GRU are qualified by researchers as "highly probable" — this is not absolute certainty, and I note it as such.

My stated bias

I consider Russian hybrid warfare to be a real and documented threat to European security. This bias influences my reading of this revelation. I also recognise that publishing information about sensitive nuclear sites carries risks — but I judge that The Guardian exercised the necessary discernment in publishing details that do not themselves compromise the security of the sites concerned.

Sources

Primary sources

The Guardian — Russia mounted drone surveillance of European nuclear sites over 18 months — July 2, 2026

Kyiv Independent — Russia-Ukraine war news — July 2026

Ukrinform — Ukraine news — July 2026

Secondary sources

Interfax Ukraine — Ukraine news — July 2026

Militarnyi — Ukraine defence news — July 2026

United24 Media — Ukraine news — July 2026