War in Ukraine: how drone incursions in Europe are becoming the norm

Friday May 29, a drone crashed on the top floor of a building residential in Galaèi, a port city in eastern Romania, near the Danube and the Ukrainian border. Two civilians were injured when the unmanned aircraft hit, which caused a fire on the roof of the building.

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Romanian President Nicuè™or Dan clearly designated his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as responsible. The Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Oana Èšoiu, for her part, confirmed that the drone was Russian and loaded with explosives.

Kayoko Gotoh, co-director of the UN’s political and peacekeeping departments, said the incident illustrated repeated warnings from politicians across Europe that the war in Ukraine, led by Russia, was now crossing borders.

After Friday’s incident, a flood of messages of support poured into Bucharest. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other European officials expressed their solidarity with Romania.

In this context, the former Russian president and current vice-president of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, issued his own warning. “Remain vigilant and don’t be surprised by anything. Peaceful sleep is over”he wrote on X.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Romania has been rocked by at least 28 drone incursions, according to research by the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW). At least fifteen of them occurred in 2026 alone.

But Romania is not alone. Over the past year, the Latviathe Lithuanial’Estoniathe Moldovathe Finlandthe Denmark and the Belgiumas well as countries further south such as Bulgaria and Greece, have reported incidents involving drones flying over cities, port areas and other key public infrastructure.

Some of these devices are Ukrainian, but suspected of having been diverted from their trajectory, involuntarily or under the effect of Russian GPS jamming, known as spoofing. Many are owned and operated by Russia.

Hence a question: since when has Europe been submerged by such intrusions? Euronews takes stock.

When did the drone incursions start?

Before 2022, experts attached little importance to the military use of small drones likely to tip the scales in favor of Ukraine against Russia. But a year after the start of the war, according to a study by Dominika Kunertova for the Zurich Center for Security Studies, thousands of drones (reconnaissance devices, redundant munitions, small bombs dropped by drones and suicide drones) have confounded the expectations of the military and defense specialists. defense.

“The war in Ukraine showed that small, lightweight drones can achieve tactical victories”underlines this study.

Since then, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has often been characterized as “drone war”carried out mainly in the air using cheap and disposable devices, sometimes costing from €257 per unit.

The massive use of drones, particularly at the tactical level, testifies to an evolution in the nature of combat, estimates the former head of the American Department of Defense Seth Cropsey in a note published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

A senior Ukrainian military official says that Kyiv deploys some 9,000 drones every day to slow down the Russian advance, with Moscow responding in kind.

The first incursions of drones, both Russian and Ukrainian, into European skies really came to light in September 2025. That month, at least nineteen Russian Shahed drones entered Polish airspace. Those who represented a risk to the security of the country were neutralized, then indicated the Minister of Defense, WładysÅ‚aw Kosiniak-Kamysz.

The three affected Polish regions – Podlaskie, Mazowieckie and Lublin – are all on the country’s eastern border with Belarus and Ukraine. Polish President Donald Tusk then accused Russia, writing that these devices represented “a direct threat”.

Since then, other countries have been confronted with drones, but this episode constituted a major moment of tension for the bloc, highlighting the weaknesses of its air defense systems.

Quelle a été la rréponse?

Poland invoked NATO Article 4 in September, triggering emergency consultations between the 32 allies. The Secretary General of the Alliance, Mark Rutte, launched last September, l’opération Eastern Sentry to strengthen the Alliance’s posture on the Eastern flank and monitor, intercept and shoot down drones.

Mark Rutte had stressed that the drone incursion in Poland represented the highest concentration of violations of NATO airspace, but that “what happened […] was not an isolated incident. Russia’s recklessness in the air along our eastern flank is increasing in frequency.”.

To date, the main objective of Eastern Sentry remains to strengthen the Alliance’s capabilities to intercept Russian drones. But, according to security analyst Charlie Edwards of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the organization faces a much larger problem: how to achieve this at a sustainable cost.

“On a large scale, launching hundreds of cheap drones can quickly deplete the Alliance’s limited and expensive stock of interceptors, potentially leaving some exposed sectors time to reload.”he underlines in a document. “Russia will continue to actively seek to exploit divisions whenever such opportunities present themselves,” he adds.

NATO’s initial response to the drone incursions was also criticized for its lack of unity. US President Donald Trump initially suggested that drone incursions into Poland were a “accident”.

“No, it wasn’t a mistake”replied the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radosaw Sikorski, on “not intimidate” through Moscow.

Donald Trump then published an ambiguous message on his own platform, Truth Social: “What is going on with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”

The Polish incident then pushed the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to take advantage of her address on the state of the European Union, to “répondre à l’appel” of certain member states and build what was then called a “anti-drone wall”.

However, this project was foiled as new drone incursions were reported in member states beyond the eastern flank, casting doubt on the viability of an operation focused on this area alone. At the time, the objective was to establish integrated anti-drone systems, combining sensor networks, capabilities integrating artificial intelligence and other measures.

Since then, the initiative has evolved into several other programs, such as the Action Plan for Security Against Drones and Anti-Drones, Eastern Flank Watch, and the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance. A common thread runs through this work: ensuring that Europe engages with Ukraine – the country that best understands how to deter Russian drone attacks – and implements lessons learned. Europe must also detect, intercept and neutralize these threats, as part of these plans.

However, the overall response of the European executive has so far been criticized by several countries, according to a confidential document consulted by Euronews. This tension crystallizes in an impasse in matters of common defense: national governments want to cooperate, but refuse to divulge secrets or sensitive information likely to harm their sovereignty or their national interests.

“Delegations broadly recognized the growing cross-sector security implications of drones and highlighted the need to strengthen preparedness, resilience, detection capabilities and operational cooperation.”we can read in the text. But fragmentation, lack of data, weak coordination and difficulties linked to the allocation of European funds remain.

What is the impact?

Ondrej Ditrych, political analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies (ISS), believes that Moscow is seeking to sow chaos and fuel anxiety within the EU through these incidents. Sometimes these incursions are accidental, he acknowledges, but Moscow systematically exploits them.

“There is a dimension of mental or psychological warfare on the part of Russia, which consists of intentionally redirecting Ukrainian drones, hijacking them, to frighten the European population, make them feel the risk of war more directly and, of course, undermine support for Ukraine.”he explains.

Ondrej Ditrych also highlights a clear pattern of escalation of these hybrid threats in recent years, which is part of a mosaic of disinformation, electoral interference, GPS jamming, arson, nuclear intimidation and unidentified drones flying over or approaching airports and maritime infrastructure.

Another analyst, Ionela Ciolan, from the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies, shares this observation. In an article, she asserts that Russia is applying a strategy of “boiled frog”aiming to trivialize chaos while probing NATO’s vulnerabilities, particularly in gray zone warfare, such as cable cutting and drone incursions.

The objective is to push the limits of what is tolerated. Ionela Ciolan believes that Moscow could, in the future, carry out “provocations” along the Estonian and Latvian borders to observe the Alliance’s reaction. “The future security and stability of the Baltic region will depend on the outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as the evolution of the transatlantic partnership and the defense policy of the United States under the Trump administration.”she writes.

Carlo Masala, professor of international politics at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, has devoted a book not only to the consequences of a possible victory for Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, but also to the next steps that Russia could take. In this fiction, he suggests that Narva, Estonia’s third city, could be the first European conquest of Moscow, made possible by divisions within NATO.

As the episode where dozens of drones entered Polish territory showed, the immediate response to Russian aggression was not always harmonious.

And now ?

When the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, was paralyzed last month after the detection of a drone near the country’s border with Belarus, SMS alerts ordered residents to immediately take shelter with their families. The president and prime minister were taken to underground bunkers, while the Baltic country’s airport was closed and the roads deserted.

It was the first drone incursion that led to civilians taking refuge within the EU.

Lithuanian President Gitanas NausÄ—da recognized on May 26 that the skies above the Baltic countries “is not safe enough”. Estonian President Alar Karis said that these airspace violations and other hybrid threats aim to intimidate Europe, but that the response must be calm, coordinated and “farm”. Latvian President Edgars RinkÄ“viÄ s, for his part, adopted a different tone, saying that these hybrid attempts clearly show that “Russia is failing” on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Europe is in the middle of a debate on its 21st package of sanctions against Russia for his invasion of Ukraine, which is now entering its fifth year. Diplomatic sources say the recent drone incident in Romania has put pressure on European leaders to accelerate measures targeting Moscow.

Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Èšoiu said Euronews that she had spoken with her EU counterpart, the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas, about a “acceleration of pace” measures, due to the damage caused to Galaèi.

Former senior Romanian NATO official Mircea Geoană agreed, saying that the country remained in a state of “choc” but there remained “a lot of work to do” to counter drones in the future.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said Euronews that drones in European skies would no longer be the exception, but the rule, with a “forte probabilité” further incidents involving unmanned aircraft in the near future.