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Airspace Violations in Europe
September – October 2025
Verified Events of airspace violations across the EU between 1 August 2025 and 7 October 2025 on a map with security risk overlay.
Click buttons below to view Verified Events.
Verified Events Trends
Potential attribution to Russia for airspace violations will likely increase NATO concerns about security of the alliance’s airspace. Russia’s war in Ukraine has seen a wider uptick in both military and civil drone activity linked to Russia. Russia-launched military drones have entered the airspace of Poland, Romania and the Baltics via Ukraine. Poland on 22 September announced that it will start shooting down any enemy objects in its airspace. The Nordics and Western European states have been on high alert as unauthorized drones have been spotted on multiple occasions near critical infrastructure, including energy infrastructure, military sites and logistical hubs, such as airports and maritime ports.
Source: Control Risks analysis published on 23 September 2025 on Seerist
AIRSPACE VIOLATIONS
Sabotage Concerns
Military Base
Drone sighting above military base highlights heightened surveillance, sabotage threats to infrastructure
Regional newspaper L’Union on 25 September reported that the French military had spotted several drones of unidentified origin flying over a military base overnight on 21-22 September. The base was used to train Ukrainian forces in 2024.
The incident highlights how infrastructure, particularly transport, energy and telecommunications, is a target for hostile state actor surveillance and sabotage.
Acts of sabotage will generally be fairly limited in sophistication, and their impact will be short-lived.
Source: Control Risks analysis published on 29 September 2025 on Seerist
Sabotage Concerns
Military Base
Military Drone
22
This pie chart gives a breakdown of the systems used to carry out airspace violations across the EU between 1 August to 4 October 2025.
Drone
2
Vandalism
2
Airstrike
1
Manpad
1
Missle/Rocket
1
Military
23
Private Property
16
Aviation
7
Government
2
The pie chart provides an insight into the sectors impacted by airspace violations in the EU between 1 August to 4 October 2025, with military topping the list.
‘Conflict’ Events & Sentiment Analysis
OSINT TRENDS
The EventsAI Trends graph displays a spike in ‘CONFLICT’ events from high-reliability sources across the EU on 9 September 2025, following several airspace violations in Poland. This is succeeded by elevated levels of such reporting relative to before 9 September 2025, as more incidents of airspace violations were recorded in multiple countries. The latest airspace violations have been recorded in Germany & Belgium in October 2025.
EventsAI
EventsAI Emotions
EventsAI
EventsAI Emotions
This EventsAI Emotions graph provides an insight into regional sentiments across the EU between 5 August to 5 October 2025. The graph shows a surge in high to medium reliability events tagged with ‘FEAR’ and ‘ANGER’ on 9 September when multiple drones invaded the Polish airspace.
Gauging Perception to Anticipate Response
Country-Level Media Analysis
Poland
The EventsAI Emotions graph displays a sharp spike in events from high-reliability sources originating from Poland tagged with ‘FEAR’ and ‘ANGER’ on 9 September 2025.
Poland
Germany
United States
Belgium
Germany
The EventsAI Emotions graph exhibits a rise in events from high-reliability sources originating from Germany tagged with ‘FEAR’ and ‘ANGER’ on 21 September and 4 October 2025.
Poland
Germany
United States
Belgium
United States
The EventsAI Emotions graph displays a sharp spike in events from high-reliability sources originating from the US tagged with ‘FEAR’ and ‘ANGER’ on 9 September 2025, following recorded NATO airspace violations in Poland.
Poland
Germany
United States
Belgium
Belgium
The EventsAI Emotions graph shows a rise in events from high-reliability sources originating from Belgium tagged with ‘FEAR’ and ‘ANGER’ starting 9 September 2025 when multiple drones were spotted in Poland.
Poland
Germany
United States
Belgium
Risk Ratings & Evacuation Watch
Deliberate probing of NATO capabilities likely behind drone sightings; war risk rating for Denmark increased to LOW
Five Danish airports on 25 September closed overnight after coordinated drone incursions. This follows a four-hour shutdown of the main airport in the capital Copenhagen on 23-24 September.
The coordinated nature and geographic spread of the drone incidents, targeting both aviation hubs and defence infrastructure, signal that it is highly likely that this was a deliberate probe of Danish and NATO response capacities.
Russia’s involvement is increasingly likely due to the apparent professionalism of the perpetrator and choice of assets targeted.
We are increasing our war risk rating for Denmark from very low to LOW to reflect the increasing impact of hybrid warfare threats on the local operational environment.
The drone sabotage threat to European airports will remain heightened in the coming weeks, alongside cyber disruptions.
LOW war risk rating
The apparent co-ordination and geographic spread of the drone incidents, targeting both aviation hubs and defence infrastructure, signal that this was highly likely to be a deliberate probe of Danish and NATO response capacities. Drones represent a relatively inexpensive means of causing significant disruption to airport activity. Denmark is considering calls to invoke NATO’s Article 4 for formal alliance consultations, which would acknowledge a likely Russian link to the incidents.
Russia has demonstrated a high intent and capability to exploit “grey zones” and loopholes in NATO’s security architecture to engage in intimidation, seeking to undermine the alliance. While Russia is highly likely to continue to deny involvement, Danish and EU authorities will continue to treat these and similar incidents as evidence of systematic intent to test airspace vulnerabilities and disrupt both civilian and dual-use logistics.
Source: Control Risks Analysis published on 25 September 2025 on Seerist
Foresight into Emerging Risks
ANALYSIS
Drone incursions highlight expanding hybrid warfare threats, increased likelihood of disruption
Co-ordinated drone activity on 25-26 September and 3 October was observed over key infrastructure, including military, airport, industrial and government sites, in the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Bavaria in Germany.
These sightings suggest a coordinated effort to survey or measure infrastructure.
The threat of drone disruption to European infrastructure will remain heightened in the coming weeks.
Hybrid warfare tactics are increasingly targeting critical infrastructure and disrupting civilian operations. The threat of drone disruption to European infrastructure will remain heightened in the coming weeks.
Drone sightings over arms factory reflect increasing hybrid threat to defence sector businesses
Businesses linked to the Ukrainian military, including through the supply of dual-use goods, will continue to be targeted by Russia.
Tactics will tend to be non-violent, but violent incidents such as arson are also possible.
Drone-based activity is the likeliest tactic, including efforts to measure infrastructure, test responses, signal capability and tacitly threaten adversarial states. However, violent tactics will also likely be used, though more rarely – for example through arson attacks. It is unlikely that businesses supporting Ukraine in areas other than defence will be targeted, with no such incidents being reported to date.
Drone sighting above military base highlights heightened surveillance, sabotage threats to infrastructure
The incident highlights that infrastructure, particularly transport, energy and telecommunications, is a target for hostile state actor surveillance and sabotage. France has seen a number of acts of sabotage against critical infrastructure in recent years, in line with similar trends in neighboring Germany. These attacks are generally carried out using low-sophistication (and therefore hard to trace) means, meaning that their impact is generally fairly short-lived.
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Impact on the Aviation Industry
EventsAI, Analysis & Verified Events cards capturing immediate updates on airspace closures due to drone sightings and other events, which caused disruptions in the last 60 days across the EU.
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Sabotage Concerns
Military Base
EventsAI
EventsAI Emotions
Poland
Germany
United States
Belgium
Poland
Germany
United States
Belgium
Poland
Germany
United States
Belgium
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