Today we have to say that drones are becoming a tool of geopolitics and economic pressure. The repeated appearance of drones over major airports, military bases and infrastructure in northern and eastern Europe has caused not only the military to react, but also politicians to think about taking the necessary decisions.
Why drones appear more frequently, what objects they are fixed on and what economic and international political consequences this leads to. Analysts highlight several reasons.
First, combat and hybrid operations, as the continuation and evolution of the conflict around Ukraine, made inexpensive attack and reconnaissance drones a «point» tool. An impact that allows you to strike the infrastructure and at the same time test the air defense and control systems in extreme situations, while remaining cheap and relatively anonymous.
Second, demonstration flights are targeted «surges of activity» over civilian objects, increasingly being interpreted as an attempt to sow panic reaction, paralyze transport and demonstrate the vulnerability of objects. Finally, some of the incidents are related to habitual civil violations (hobbies, operator errors) and abuses (espionage, smuggling), which further complicates the identification of motives and responses. Analysts emphasize that the combination of combat experience, availability of equipment and political advantage makes such flights an instrument of modern «hybrid» war.
Practice shows a certain pattern. First in the reports on sites where drone activity was recorded were airports and military airfields, where even one drone can paralyze work for many hours.
For example, in Denmark in October 2025, a series of synchronous drones over the Copenhagen-Kastrup airport and several other regional airfields, at Olborg, Billune and Odense, led to the temporary suspension of flights, Evacuation of passengers and transfer of military helicopters to patrol airspace.
The Danish security services described these incidents as «coordinated and professionally executed» operations, without excluding foreign intervention. The authorities noted that the nature of the flights – synchrony, altitude and trajectory indicates pre-planned testing of security systems, not amateur actions. Similar episodes have been observed in other countries.
In Norway, the airports of Oslo Gardermoen and Bergen were temporarily closed in 2024 when drones were detected near takeoff strips and fuel storage facilities. The police later reported the detention of several persons suspected of being associated with foreign companies carrying out critical object reconnaissance.
In the United Kingdom, at the beginning of 2025, the occurrence of drones was investigated at the military airfields of Lossimout and Waddington, where NATO reconnaissance aircraft are based. The British Ministry of Defence has acknowledged that some aircraft could collect radar data on air defense operations.
In parallel, similar cases were recorded near military bases in Eastern Europe. For example, in Poland and Lithuania drones are regularly spotted near arms depots and military airfields hosting allied contingents. The authorities of these countries emphasize that such cases are considered as attempts of intelligence preparation attacks or psychological pressure.
In addition, the presence of an unidentified drone over the airport is also causing economic damage. Closing the airport for a few hours would cause not only inconvenience to passengers, but also millions of euros in losses to airlines and related services: flight cancellations, rerouting, compensation, increased insurance fees and logistical disruptions along the entire chain.
Aviation regulators note that without the systemic adaptation of costs for systems and methods of countering unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or drones (counter-UAS) and infrastructure modernization, costs will increase.
In addition, in the active combat zone in Ukraine drones are increasingly targeting energy and transport infrastructure. Only in 2024-2025, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy, there were dozens of strikes on substations, refineries and railway nodes, leading to power supply disruptions, rising electricity prices and urgent purchases of spare equipment.
Experts note that these attacks have a delayed economic effect also on neighboring EU countries, where they have to redistribute fuel and electricity flows, increasing the cost of supplies.
The political consequences are as important as the economic ones.
The illegal invasion of European airspace forces countries to coordinate actions on a multilateral basis. Incidents when objects fly across NATO borders have already led to the first cases of direct military reaction and political statements about rethinking defense tactics.
In this context, the alliance and national governments are discussing not only technical measures (detection systems, neutralization), but also diplomatic steps: accountability, sanctions and change of rules of use of force in airspace.
The key vulnerability is identification. Small UAVs remain «invisible» for classical radar systems. Their small size and body materials hardly reflect the radar signal. Even modern military radars are often unable to distinguish a household quadcopter from a bird or weather probe.
At the same time, civilian areas require maximum care, because the application of electronic suppression or physical destruction of the apparatus over a densely populated area can lead to injuries, damage and massive communication failures.
In London, after a long day of chaos at Gatwick airport (as early as 2018), the British authorities revised their response to unidentified drones. But similar situations were repeated later.
So in 2024-2025, the airports of Heathrow and Manchester temporarily stopped take-offs due to unknown aircraft, while the military could not use weapons without risk of getting into passenger terminals. In Germany in 2024, the Bavarian police reported several episodes of drone observations over the Airbus Defence & Space plant in Manching.
These objects were protected, but the intervention was limited to monitoring because the operator could not be identified. It was later revealed that one of the vehicles used commercial communication channels registered outside the EU, which raised diplomatic questions.
In Sweden and Norway, investigations of the 2023-2025 incidents of drones over oil refineries and gas facilities on the North Sea coast showed a similar dilemma. The situation is also complicated by a legal vacuum.
Most European countries still do not have common protocols of communication between civil aviation services, police and military when detecting drones.
This leads to delays and duplication of decisions. In 2025, Eurocontrol recorded 42 incidents where a drone violated the airspace of EU airports, but only 12 cases were able to establish the identity of the operator. The rest remained in the category of «uncertain threats».
The gap between the ability to detect and safely neutralize drones is driving the rapid growth of the counter-UAS market, encompassing a segment from radio frequency jammers and drone interceptors to laser systems.
According to Politico Europe, EU countries’ spending on these solutions has more than tripled between 2022 and 2025. But the growing demand for such technologies has already created a new level of political competition.
Major manufacturers in France, Germany and Israel are lobbying for a relaxation of export restrictions, while the European Commission is discussing the introduction of unified licensing because of concerns that counterterrorism systems could be used for offensive purposes.
Thus, the issue of UAV identification has become not only a technical problem but also a legal and diplomatic one, as every new attempt to intercept or disconnect can lead to political conflict if there are no transparent rules and international standards for response.
The resolution of the anti-drone issue depends on the degree of coordination of the European framework for monitoring and protecting critical infrastructure. For politicians, a number of actions are obvious, such as the need to establish clear rules on the use of force in the air, improve intelligence sharing, and create compatible technical standards for counter-UAS.
Finally, society must be prepared for the new reality that not every drone appearance is an accident, and not every operation requires an immediate military response. But ignoring the growing role of drones is also dangerous.
The European sky is becoming an arena for a new kind of competition, where cheap technology creates maximum effect at minimum cost.
The question is whether Europe will be able to build technical, legal and diplomatic mechanisms to reduce economic losses and avoid dangerous escalation.
The answer to this challenge will determine whether the sky will remain a free space for flight and business, or become a constant field of low-intensity conflict with high consequences.