IISS Report Warns Russian Drones Are 'Highly Likely' Surveilling UK Military Bases

IISS Report Warns Russian Drones Are 'Highly Likely' Surveilling UK Military Bases

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has published a new report concluding that Russian drones are 'highly likely' being used to reconnoitre UK military air bases — a development the think tank characterises as part of a wider Kremlin unconventional campaign targeting Europe.

The report, titled Russia's UAV Campaign Over Europe, documents drone activity over the airspace of 12 NATO member states and Ireland between August 2024 and February 2026. The authors state that surveillance operations targeting UK military facilities were 'highly likely' carried out by drones launched from vessels associated with Russia's shadow fleet.

The think tank acknowledges that not every drone sighting was directed by Russia, nor did every incident definitively involve a drone. However, it concludes that the overall pattern cannot be explained away by hobbyist activity or misidentification alone.

Counter-Drone Efforts Accelerating

Frequent drone sightings across Europe, concerns over unidentified drone activity within the United States, and the large-scale battlefield use of drone systems in Ukraine have all significantly elevated attention to protecting military installations from aerial threats.

The report highlights the legal and operational challenges of conducting counter-drone operations over military bases. In peacetime, armed forces typically rely on law enforcement agencies to handle unauthorised activity over domestic territory, making it difficult to take immediate kinetic action against suspected drone operators.

As a result, personnel generally resort to electronic warfare or drone-jamming and deflection measures rather than kinetic intercepts.

In 2025, then-UK Defence Secretary John Healey indicated the government was seeking new legal powers to address the issue.

"We are developing new authorisations — to be legislated through the Armed Forces Act — to give the military the power to shoot down unidentified drones over UK military sites," Healey said.

Gaps in Air Defence Architecture

The IISS report also highlights that the UK's existing air defence systems and civil aviation radar infrastructure were primarily designed to detect fast-moving, high-altitude aircraft — not small drones flying at low altitude.

Drones operating at night without broadcasting identification signals pose a significant detection challenge, the report notes, and civil aviation systems lack effective mechanisms to track aircraft that deliberately maintain electronic silence.

The report recommends that defending against low-cost drone threats should not rely on traditional high-end air defence systems. Instead, it calls for dedicated Counter-UAS (C-UAS) technologies specifically designed to detect, track, and neutralise small drones.

Charlie Edwards, co-author of the IISS report, stated that the authors believe the UK and other European nations facing drone activity threats have the capability to protect themselves from drone surveillance — provided appropriate counter-drone measures are deployed.

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Image credit: alexman89 via Pixabay

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