London — Britain is sending anti-drone tools and personnel to Belgium after a spate of sightings close to airports and navy bases, the pinnacle of the U.Ok. navy mentioned Sunday.
Whereas Belgium and the U.Ok. haven’t accused anybody of flying the unidentified drones, they’re the newest in a rising development of airspace violations by mysterious plane in about half of a dozen European nations, together with round NATO navy bases, that no less than one U.S. ally calls a part of escalating Russian “hybrid warfare.”
Previously week Belgium’s essential worldwide airport in Brussels and one among Europe’s greatest cargo airports, close to the Belgian metropolis of Liege, have been compelled to shut briefly due to drone incursions. Earlier than that, authorities reported a sequence of unidentified drone flights close to a navy base in Belgium the place U.S. nuclear weapons are saved.
Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, the pinnacle of Britain’s armed forces, mentioned over the weekend that the U.Ok. had agreed to “deploy our people, our equipment to Belgium to help them,” after a request from Belgian authorities.
An indication studying “No drone zone” is seen as an plane lands at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, Belgium, Nov. 5, 2025.
NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP/Getty
“We don’t know — and the Belgians don’t yet know — the source of those drones, but we will help them by providing our kit and capability, which has already started to deploy to help Belgium,” Knighton instructed the BBC.
U.Ok. Protection Secretary John Healey mentioned the U.Ok. was sending a workforce of Royal Air Drive specialists to NATO ally Belgium “to counter rogue drone activity.”
“As hybrid threats grow, our strength lies in our alliances and our collective resolve to defend, deter and protect our critical infrastructure and airspace,” he mentioned.
Drones plague European airports amid rising stress with Russia
Drone incidents throughout Europe have compelled airports to droop flights many instances in current months. Whereas Belgium has not mentioned who it believes is working the drones, Russia has been blamed in some circumstances by different NATO allies.
Belgian Protection Minister Theo Francken mentioned that he believed that some incidents have been a part of “a spying operation” that might not have been carried out by amateurs.
Belgium is residence to the headquarters of NATO and the European Union, in addition to Europe’s greatest monetary clearinghouse holding tens of billions of euros in frozen Russian property. Many EU international locations wish to use these property as collateral to offer loans to Ukraine, however Belgium has thus far resisted.
Essentially the most overt blame has been solid by Lithuania, a NATO member that accused Russia and its shut ally Belarus on the finish of October of escalating a hybrid struggle in opposition to Ukraine’s companions two-and-a-half years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Lithuania’s Overseas Minister Kestutis Budrys mentioned in an Oct. 27 social media put up that the U.S.-led NATO alliance was dealing with a “deliberate escalation of hybrid warfare from Russia and its proxy, Belarus,” calling the spate of current airspace incursions, “calculated provocations designed to destabilize, distract and test NATO’s resolve.”
He referred to as for additional sanctions in opposition to Belarus and stronger NATO safety measures to discourage the airspace violations, as Lithuania’s prime minister warned that any additional unidentified balloons coming into the nation’s airspace from Belarus can be shot down.
On this undated photograph launched by the State Border Guard Service of Lithuania, an officer inspects a balloon used to hold cigarettes into the nation by suspected Belarussian smugglers.
State Border Guard Service through AP
Lots of America’s European allies have had their airspace breached in current weeks, largely by unclaimed drones flying round airports and navy amenities in Germany, Denmark and the Baltic states.
On Oct. 23, a Russian Sukhoi SU-30 fighter and an IL-78 tanker airplane flew just below half of a mile into Lithuanian territory, in keeping with the nation’s ministry of overseas affairs, after departing from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The Baltic Sea coastal territory is separate from the remainder of Russia, and bordered on two sides by Lithuania and Poland.
Estonia accused Russian fighter jets of flying by means of its airspace for 12 minutes in mid-September. Russia denied coming into the NATO member’s airspace and referred to as the flight a routine coaching train.
