Tag: drones

Drones spotted near Dutch military base

Unidentified drones have been observed hovering over a military base used by Nato in the Netherlands, the Dutch defence ministry has said.

It said military personnel deployed weapons to try to take down the drones spotted near Volkel Air Base, north of Eindhoven, between 19:00 and 21:00 local time (18:00-20:00 GMT) on Friday.

The defence ministry said the devices “departed and were never recovered”.

The Netherlands is among a number of northern European nations to be blighted by drone sightings around military installations and airfields in recent months. Russia has denied accusations it was involved in previous incidents.

Dutch police are investigating Friday’s incident. Officials said that for security reasons they would provide no further details about how the drones or what action was taken.

As well as being used by the Royal Netherlands Air Force, Volkel Air Base hosts a US Air Force squadron as part of Nato.

The incident follows reports of drone sightings at other Dutch air bases in the past few weeks, as well as facilities in neighbouring Belgium, Denmark and Germany.

The sightings have disrupted air traffic and raised security concerns.

A lack of evidence pointing to their origins has plagued investigations into the incidents since they began in September, as in many cases the drones depart after a while.

Some European officials have attributed the sightings to “hybrid warfare” on the part of Russia, as the nations that have been targeted are all allied to Ukraine.

But the Kremlin has denied it has anything to do with past incursions.

Defence ministers from 10 EU countries have agreed to create a “drone wall” in response to the sightings, while some individual nations have sought to secure anti-drone defence measures.

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Russia’s AI Enabled Drones: The Next Evolution of Warfare

Russia is now fielding long-range, fiber-optic–controlled drones while simultaneously accelerating development of fully autonomous, AI-driven attack drones that mark a dramatic shift in its battlefield strategy. Ukrainian officials confirm that Moscow is deploying jam-proof fiber-optic FPV platforms with a 50-kilometer range, forcing Ukrainian units to cover supply routes with netting to protect vehicles from incoming strikes.

At the same time, Russia is rolling out a new generation of AI-enabled systems powered by smuggled NVIDIA Jetson processors, which were supposed to be blocked by sanctions but are now appearing inside multiple Russian drones.

Ukrainian drone specialist Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov reports that Russia has adapted Ukrainian innovations for its V2U autonomous strike drone, while other captured systems, like the Shahed MS001 and Tyuvik, show that Russia is rapidly building an arsenal of “digital predators” capable of finding and attacking targets without human control.

The V2U remains Russia’s most advanced autonomous platform. First deployed in Ukraine’s Sumy region in February 2025, the drone was being used 30–50 times per day by mid-May across multiple fronts. It navigates by using machine vision to compare live imagery with digital terrain maps stored on a solid-state drive, upgraded to 128 GB in later versions. A 14-megapixel camera, laser rangefinder, and NVIDIA Jetson Orin processor enable the drone to identify targets, conduct terrain analysis, and strike without GPS or human commands.

Russian forces update its onboard code almost weekly, training the AI directly through battlefield experience. The drone’s AI is powerful enough to fly up and down roads searching for targets, though its limited ability to distinguish targets has led to mistakes, including striking civilian infrastructure such as a public toilet instead of a vehicle.

To extend range, Russian forces deploy large “mother drones” that transport smaller V2Us deep into contested airspace before releasing them for individual strikes. Russia is also experimenting with coordinated swarms of seven or eight V2Us, each painted with distinct wing colors to visually identify one another.

According to Ukrainian analysts, these drones can maintain formation, coordinate attack order, and perform anti-air evasive maneuvers if a member of the group is shot down. This behavior resembles early machine-driven swarm intelligence and may be adapted for Russia’s long-range Shahed drones, creating fully autonomous loitering-munitions swarms capable of saturating Ukrainian defenses.

Captured drones reveal the scale of Russia’s dependence on foreign components. The V2U relies on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin for AI processing, Intel wireless adapters, Sony optical sensors, and numerous Chinese-made motors, drives, and batteries. The MS001, an upgraded Shahed variant, also carries a Jetson Orin paired with a thermal imager and digital modem, allowing it to recognize ground objects and strike moving targets rather than simply flying to preset coordinates.

A third autonomous drone, the Tyuvik, resembles a miniature Shahed and is now reportedly in mass production. Tyuvik can locate and strike moving armored vehicles despite using inexpensive commercial hardware, suggesting it also depends on smuggled Western or Chinese AI processors.

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US Army Prepares Million Drone Acquisition To Secure Domain Dominance On Modern Battlefield

Nearly four months after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced sweeping reforms aimed at achieving “drone domain dominance” by 2027, including a Pentagon-wide procurement overhaul led by the DOGE, Reuters reports that the U.S. Army is preparing to acquire at least one million drones over the next few years, marking one of the largest drone procurement cycles in the military service’s history. 

Learning from the modern battlefield in Ukraine, the Army plans a massive ramp-up in drones: purchasing at least a million drones over the next 2-3 years, with potential purchases of half a million or more per year thereafter.

This is a significant jump from today’s 50,000 drones per year procurement cycle, and comes as Russia and China have ramped up production of their own. 

U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll told Reuters that this new drone acquisition plan is a “big lift. But it is a lift we’re very capable of doing.” 

Here’s more from the report:

He spoke by phone during a visit to Picatinny Arsenal, where he described learning about experimentation with “net rounds,” defenses that capture a drone in nets, as well as new explosives and electromagnetic tools synched into weapon systems.

Driscoll and Picatinny’s top commander, Major General John Reim, spoke to Reuters about how the United States was taking lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has been characterized by drone deployments on an unprecedented scale.

Tiny, inexpensive drones have proven to be one of the most potent weapons in the Russia-Ukraine war, where conventional warplanes are relatively rare because of a dense concentration of anti-aircraft systems near front lines.

Ukraine and Russia each produce roughly 4 million drones a year, but China is probably able to produce more than double that number, Driscoll said.

Driscoll said his priority is getting the United States into a position where it can produce enough drones for any future war, stimulating domestic production of everything from brushless motors and sensors to batteries and circuit boards.

. . . 

“We expect to purchase at least a million drones within the next two to three years,” Driscoll said.

President Trump’s June executive order to “unleash American drone dominance” calls for scaling up domestic production. However, the challenge lies in the fact that supply chains for critical components, such as brushless motors, sensors, batteries, and chips, remain concentrated in China and other Southeast Asian countries.

“Drones are the future of warfare and America will come from behind to lead the way,” Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire stated over the summer on X. 

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The Drone War No One Can Stop: Mystery Aircraft Defy Europe’s Defences

In September 2025, a wave of incursions caused major disruption. 

Copenhagen Airport was temporarily closed. 

Danish military bases were breached. 

Drones were also spotted over a power plant, a hospital, and a ThyssenKrupp naval factory in Germany.

France and Belgium were affected too.

The countries hit seemed powerless to stop the drones.

On Saturday (1 November) and Sunday (2 November), drones were sighted on two separate occasions over Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium.

The base hosts F-16s from the Belgian Air Force’s 10th Tactical Wing.

Alarmingly, under NATO’s nuclear sharing program, the base also stores B61-series nuclear bombs.

Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken confirmed that drones entered the area near the Base in northeastern Belgium on Saturday and Sunday nights in two separate phases.

Francken said the first phase involved “small drones to test the radio frequencies” of Belgian security services. Later, “big drones” appeared, apparently “to destabilize the area and people,” he told public broadcaster RTBF.

“It resembles a spy operation. By whom, I don’t know,” he said. “I have a few ideas, but I’m going to be careful about speculating.”

As in September, Belgian forces appeared unable to bring down the drones. Francken later explained why jamming efforts failed and why the military chose not to use kinetic force.

Francken said the security services’ jammer failed because the drones had adapted.

“The jammer didn’t work because they tested our radio frequency and changed it,” he explained. “They have their own frequencies. An amateur doesn’t know how to do that.”

When asked why the drones weren’t shot down, Francken said:

“If they’re over a military base, we can shoot them down. But if they’re nearby, we have to be very careful — they could fall on a house, a car, a person. That’s completely different.”

He added that the situation also raised legal questions. “It’s not entirely clear. We have to clarify the legal grounds.”

Francken admitted that Belgium was still playing catch-up.

“We’re chasing after the threat,” he said. “We should have bought air defense systems five or ten years ago.”

Similar failures exposing the limits of counter-drone technology have occurred in recent years, affecting key U.S. military bases.

In December 2023, Langley Air Force Base in Virginia was swarmed by dozens of drones over several weeks, sparking a major security scare.

In 2024, Liberation Times obtained twenty-two witness statements and an incident report through a Freedom of Information Act request, following incursions at the base.

These statements come from members of the 633d Security Forces Squadron, who are responsible for guarding Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

Witnesses from the 633d Security Forces Squadron reported observing the so-called ‘drones’ ‘moving at rapid speeds’ and displaying ‘flashing red, green, and white lights’.

Concerningly, one witness stated that their dronebuster ‘failed to register’ one of the objects, while another was unable to use a dronebuster ‘due to not having a visual’.

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AI drones used in Gaza now surveilling American cities

AI-powered quadcopter drones used by the IDF to commit genocide in Gaza are flying over American cities, surveilling protestors and automatically uploading millions of images to an evidence database.

The drones are made by a company called Skydio which in the last few years has gone from relative obscurity to quietly become a multi-billion dollar company and the largest drone manufacturer in the US.

The extent of Skydio drone usage across the US, and the extent to which their usage has grown in just a few years, is extraordinary. The company has contracts with more than 800 law enforcement and security agencies across the country, up from 320 in March last year, and their drones are being launched hundreds of times a day to monitor people in towns and cities across the country.

Skydio has extensive links with Israel. In the first weeks of the genocide the California-based company sent more than one hundred drones to the IDF with promises of more to come. How many more were delivered since that admission is unknown. Skydio has an office in Israel and partners with DefenceSync, a local military drone contractor operating as the middle man between drone manufacturers and the IDF. Skydio has also raised hundreds of millions of dollars from Israeli-American venture capitalists and from venture capital funds with extensive investments in Israel, including from Marc Andreessen’s firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z.

And now these drones, tested in genocide and refined on Palestinians, are swarming American cities.

According to my research, almost every large American city has signed a contract with Skydio in the last 18 months, including Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, Cleveland and Jacksonville. Skydio drones were recently used by city police departments to gather information at the ‘No Kings’ protests and were also used by Yale to spy on the anti-genocide protest camp set up by students at the university last year.

In Miami, Skydio drones are being used to spy on spring breakers, and in Atlanta the company has partnered with the Atlanta Police Foundation to install a permanent drone station within the massive new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Detroit recently spent nearly $300,000 on fourteen Skydio drones according to a city procurement report. Last month ICE bought an X10D Skydio drone, which automatically tracks and pursues a target. US Customs and Border Protection has bought thirty-three of the same drones since July.

The AI system behind Skydio drones is powered by Nvidia chips and enables their operation without a human user. The drones have thermal imaging cameras and can operate in places where GPS doesn’t work, so-called ‘GPS-denied environments.’ They also reconstruct buildings and other infrastructure in 3D and can fly at more than 30 miles per hour.

The New York police were early adopters of Skydio drones and are particularly enthusiastic users. A spokesman recently told a drone news website that the NYPD launched more than 20,000 drone flights in less than a year, which would mean drones are being launched around the city 55 times per day. A city report last year said the NYPD at that time was operating 41 Skydio drones. A recent Federal Aviation Authority rule change, however, means that number will undoubtedly have increased and more generally underpins the massive expansion in the use of Skydio drones.

Prior to March this year, FAA rules meant that drones could only be used by US security forces if the operator kept the drone in sight. They also couldn’t be used over crowded city streets. An FAA waiver issued that month opened the floodgates, allowing police and security agencies to operate drones beyond a visual line of sight and over large crowds of people. Skydio called the waiver ground-breaking. It was. The change has ushered in a Skydio drone buying spree by US police and security forces, with many now employing what is called a ‘Drone As First Responder’ program. Without the need to see the drone, and with drones free to cruise over city streets, the police are increasingly sending drones before humans to call outs and for broader investigative purposes. Cincinnati for example says that by the end of this year 90% of all call outs will be serviced first by a Skydio drone.

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‘Massive’ Overnight Drone Strikes Cause Widespread Power Outages in Ukraine

The latest in a sustained Russian campaign of massive drone and missile attacks on Ukraine´s energy infrastructure brought power outages and restrictions in all the country´s regions Thursday, officials said, with the Ukrainian prime minister describing Moscow´s tactic as “systematic energy terror.”

The strikes, which were the latest in Russia´s almost daily attacks on the Ukrainian power grid as bitter winter temperatures approach, killed at least three people, including a 7-year-old girl, according to authorities. Children between 2 and 16 years of age were among the 17 injured.

Russian launched more than 650 drones and more than 50 missiles of various types in the attack, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian cities use centralized public infrastructure to run water, sewage and heating systems, and blackouts stop from them working. Months of attacks have aimed to erode Ukrainian morale as well as disrupt weapons manufacturing and other war-related activity almost four years after Russia´s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

“Russia continues its systematic energy terror – striking at the lives, dignity, and warmth of Ukrainians on the eve of winter. Its goal is to plunge Ukraine into darkness; ours is to keep the light on,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

“To stop this terror, Ukraine needs more air defense systems, tougher sanctions, and maximum pressure on (Russia),” she added, referring to fruitless U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to make Russia enter negotiations for a peace settlement.

Strikes in the southern Zaporizhzhia region injured 17 people, including a 2-year-old girl, regional authorities said. Rescuers pulled a man from the rubble of a building, but he did not survive, according to Ivan Fedorov, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional administration. A second person was also killed in Zaporizhzhia.

A 7-year-old girl died in hospital from her injuries in Ukraine´s central-west Vinnytsia region, regional governor Nataliia Zobolotna said.

Two energy infrastructure facilities were damaged in the western Lviv region, near the border with Poland, local authorities said.

The Polish military said that it scrambled Polish and allied NATO aircraft as a preventive measure due to the Russian attack on Ukrainian territory. The Polish regional airports in Radom and Lublin were closed to ensure the military freedom of operation, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency said.

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Overnight Drone Attack Hits Moscow High-Rise As Putin Warns Of ‘Overwhelming’ Response

Ukrainian drones have once again reached the Moscow area, far away from the border, at a moment the Kremlin is strongly warning against Washington allowing the transfer of US Tomahawk missiles to Kiev.

The attack on a Moscow suburb was part of a broader wave of overnight drone attacks which hit multiple regions across the country, injuring at least five people, including a child, when one drone slammed into an apartment building near Moscow.

According to Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov, the drone hit a 14th-floor apartment in a high-rise building in the city of Krasnogorsk, northwest of the capital.

Four adults were hospitalized with head injuries, fractures, and shrapnel wounds, and a boy suffered minor injuries in the attack. Circulating photos showed blown-out walls in an apartment. 

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defense forces intercepted and destroyed over 110 Ukrainian UAVs over 13 regions overnight. Several drones were also shot down as they approached the capital.

Ukraine appears to be feeling emboldened, as it has had a series of ‘wins’ on a global stage given this week’s new US and EU anti-Moscow sanctions. This new attacked marked the second consecutive night which saw more than 100 drones assault Russian territory.

Power outages resulted in some Russian areas, particularly the Rostov region, and drone impacts were reported also in Bryansk, Kaluga, Tula, and Tver.

Meanwhile President Vladimir Putin has warned in the face of new sanctions and the potential for new long-range weapons including Tomahawk missiles to be given to Ukraine that Moscow stands ready to respond with an “overwhelming” force:

“Dialogue is always better than confrontation or any disputes, and especially war. We have always supported the continuation of dialogue,” Putin told journalists. 

But if Russia was attacked with US Tomahawk missiles, which Ukraine seeks, the response would be “very strong, if not overwhelming. Let them think about it,” he added. 

So far Trump appears to have resisted Zelensky’s and Europe’s urging on this front, but shown willingness to later reverse his decisions on such Ukraine war-related issues.

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Company Takes Credit for UFOs over NJ, Raises More Questions

The swarms of unidentified aircraft over New Jersey late last year were classified tests approved by the military, according to a leak from an elite tech summit. A protected source told the New York Post how one contractor claimed responsibility for the mysterious flying objects, which began baffling Garden State residents in November of 2024. “You remember that big UFO scare in New Jersey last year? Well, that was us,” an employee of the contractor allegedly said.

The Army UAS and Launched Effects Summit is an exclusive gathering of the military’s top brass and the nation’s best private contractors. During the event, the unnamed contractor also demonstrated a manned aerial craft with a unique design that makes it difficult to detect from certain angles. This potentially explains why so many reported the New Jersey UFOs vanishing suddenly while zipping across the sky.

Although this alleged admission answers some questions, it raises several others, such as why the scale of the tests was so large, and why there was an utter lack of transparency that confused even the state’s top lawmakers and the FBI. The densely populated test area also has some wondering about the purpose of these exercises.

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British troops given powers to shoot down drones on sight: Telegraph

British troops will be given new powers to shoot down drones threatening Britain’s military bases, The Telegraph reported on Oct 19, citing an upcoming announcement on Oct 20 from British Defence Minister John Healey.

Mr Healey is expected to unveil his vision on how to protect Britain’s most critical military bases in response to a growing threat posed by Russia, the newspaper said.

Although the new powers will initially apply only for military sites, the British government was “not ruling out working to extend those powers” to other important sites like airports, the Telegraph said, citing a source.

Currently, troops can use specialist counter-drone equipment which can track incoming drones, hijack signals, and divert them, according to The Telegraph.

The new proposal will give soldiers or Ministry of Defence Police a “kinetic option” to shoot them on site, which they can only do now in extreme circumstances, The Telegraph further added.

Mr Healey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Britain’s Defence Ministry could not immediately be reached.

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Army Secretary: Love the killer drone or be left behind

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s opening remarks at this year’s United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting & Exposition — that drones will “absolutely dominate warfare in the twenty-first century” — set the tone for a conference swarming with them.

Describing them as cheap, yet cutting-edge warfighting tools, Driscoll sold drones as a fundamental shift in how wars will be fought — and thus an essential asset to the Army of the future.

“If small arms defined the twentieth century, drones will define the twenty-first. They are the perfect convergence of artificial intelligence, advanced materials, batteries and propulsion systems, sensor fusion and much more,” Driscoll told attendees. “They will absolutely dominate warfare in the twenty-first century.”

Drones “are reshaping how humans inflict violence on each other at a pace never witnessed in human history. They are cheap, modular, precise, multi-role and scalable, and we will rapidly integrate them into our formations,” he said.

Driscoll’s words were music to industry’ ears at AUSA, where scores of tech-forward companies hungry for collaboration with the DoD promoted their state-of-the-art drones to these ends.

Of course the drones’s lethal capacities were at center stage. Elbit America’s display presented its Skystriker loitering munition as a “one-shot, one-kill system” and as a “high lethality warhead for a variety of targets.” A representative for DraganFly, meanwhile, stressed their drones’ ability to carry explosives. And General Atomics’ flyers depicted one of its models equipped and firing a laser weapon — the “High Energy Laser (HEL) Weapon System.”

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