European governments are preparing for a type of confrontation that current investments do not fully cover.
The sabotages attributed to Russia usually employ drones, logistic networks, intermediaries from the underworld, and proxies that allow the denial of involvement, and the targets are European cities. However, official policies and national strategies remain focused on detecting and intercepting each incident individually.
Such an approach targets only the instrument of attack and largely leaves untouched the vulnerability it exploits. And the vulnerability is clear: Europe’s security architecture remains slow, fragmented, and costly to mobilize between agencies and beyond national borders.
Under these circumstances, drone incursions become mere isolated incidents, and the issue of long and inefficient responses remains unresolved, writes Megi Benia, a former Georgian diplomat specialized in security and foreign policy and in Russia’s influence operations, in Kyiv Independent. She is also a project coordinator at the Southeast Europe and Black Sea Region Program within the Platform for Peace and Humanity, and an associate researcher at the Research Center for Security, Politics, and Nationalism (UGSPN) of the University of Georgia.
A broader pattern
The incident at Leipzig/Halle airport on August 4 falls within a broader pattern of Russian sabotage against European cities, especially the major airports on the continent. A quadcopter drone, loaded with plastic explosives, went unnoticed by security systems and landed near a Ukrainian cargo plane, without detonating.
Every case, regardless of whether an attack was intentional or carried out, leaves behind the same uncertainty. It is precisely this that makes inexpensive actions, which allow the denial of involvement, so effective against otherwise very capable institutions.
A drone that hovers or approaches an airport can disrupt the operation of a critical civil infrastructure. The airport must be immediately closed, the police and intelligence services are overburdened, and resources are blocked even if no attack is forthcoming.
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