As many have observed, there is a very real sense in which Europe, including Britain, is already at war with Russia, albeit in a low-key, sporadic and sometimes confusing manner.
As the Independent has discovered under a freedom of information request, there has been a highly concerning escalation in unlawful drone activity at Ministry of Defence sites.
The figures reveal that there have been 340 security breaches involving drones at or near British military sites in the year to August 2026, against a total of 250 over 2025 and 126 the year before.
Experts suggest the surge is happening simply because these bases are basically undefended. Russia or Iran could be behind them, while proven instances of Chinese intelligence gathering also seem to be on the rise.
It is no surprise that the chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, tells Sky News that: “This is the most dangerous time I have known in my working life. In my 35-year career, this is the most dangerous period that I have known. And the risks and threats to this country are greater than I have known since the Cold War.”
The increasing incursions by Russian drones and projectiles into European Nato airspace, supposedly “accidental”, look suspiciously like the Kremlin is seeking to probe responses and the extent to which it can behave before triggering anything more than relatively mild political and diplomatic rebukes.
Poland and Romania are now long used to stray missiles from the Ukraine war crumping into fields, and the activities of the Russian “shadow fleet”, alternately mapping and occasionally dredging up vital undersea cables, are also well documented.
For some reason this week, probably just cheekily cocking a snook, a Russian warship fired two emergency flares at a Danish helicopter while it was tracking the vessel in the Baltic. Also this week, significant parts of the Netherlands’ rail network were destroyed in what could have been Russian-inspired sabotage.
Less equivocal was the appearance of a Russian drone in Lithuanian airspace, quickly shot down by Italian fighter jets stationed as part of Nato’s Baltic Air Policing Mission.
The aim of the Kremlin, with semi-independent groups working without any official orders from the authorities, is to provoke alarm and fear, but below the threshold at which any serious military counterstrike would be justified. No Nato commander or government is going to launch a nuclear warhead aimed at Moscow just because, say, a Russian submarine has once again been detected inside Swedish territorial waters.
It is this natural tendency towards restraint on the part of the West that Vladimir Putin and his cronies seek to exploit, both for propaganda and to gather intelligence.
Over the years, everything from specially staged attacks on synagogues and mosques, through to the Salisbury poisoning and the attempted arson of the Starmer family home in London, has been used by the Russians to foment hatred and violence and undermine Europeans’ sense of security in their own homelands.
As the war in Ukraine grinds on, Europeans can expect much more of this, as the Kremlin seeks to pressure the West to abandon Kyiv and to fear a direct conflict with Russian forces, including an invasion of a Nato ally on Russia’s borders. There is the quite justified fear that lives will be lost in the near future, and that that or some other serious incident will require a more robust response than a threat of tightening EU sanctions or the expulsion of an ambassador.
Indeed, that almost transpired in the reckless attack on a Ukrainian air force transport plane at Leipzig airport by a drone packed with explosives. It failed to detonate, but if it had, and in doing so killed many people, how would – and how should – Nato have reacted?
Every war presents fresh tactical and strategic challenges, and this new phase of mostly low-level belligerence by the Russians in particular is no different. With the new drone technologies and, before long, the AI genre is a new “hybrid” form of warfare. In the Cold War, the battles were fought far from Europe or the US, in proxy conflicts in Asia and Africa. Previous global conflagrations have been “total warfare” with the objective of occupation if need be, and unconditional surrender. Now, Western leaders have to adjust to this different context.
For European Nato, that means three things. First, every effort to retain US commitment to European security, hopeless as that may often be under the Trump administration. One hopeful sign in this respect is that Congress is passing the so-called Lindsey Graham bill to sanction “third parties” supporting Russia’s war machine. The US is also set to keep heavy battalions stationed in Lithuania.
Second, national and Nato facilities, and vital infrastructure – nuclear power stations are a potent example – have to be given better defences, particularly against drones. And third, and has been clear for some time, European conventional defences have to be built and deployed on the Eastern flank to deter any Russian adventurism.
Britain and its allies are now engaged in a new form of conflict. It is not a “hot war” in the traditional all-out sense. The Russians are not going to land in Kent, nor will Britons be deployed to the Donbas. But this phase is also more kinetic, as the strategists say, than the Cold War that lasted until 1989, when barely a shot was fired across the Iron Curtain.
As we see, this new hybrid “warm war” is going to be difficult to manage – but at least the main tasks involved in building strength through deterrence are clear. All we need to do is find the money.
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