Investigation: Drones Monitoring Military Sites in Europe Were Launched from Ships

Unmanned drones that monitored military sites in Europe were launched from civilian vessels positioned near the coast.

This was revealed by an investigation carried out by a group of German student journalists and later published by international expert Henk van Ess.

The investigation focused on unexplained drone flights in Germany and the Netherlands. The young journalists noticed that, at the same time, cargo ships were located near the shores of these countries and were behaving unusually – anchoring without any obvious reason or making strange maneuvers.

Using open-source data, mainly ship navigation logs, the students discovered a pattern: whenever certain vessels were close to shore or remained at sea for extended periods, unidentified drones were recorded flying over nearby military facilities.

In the end, the investigation identified three vessels that repeatedly showed this behavior, including the cargo ships HAV Dolphin and HAV Snapper.

The vessels are formally owned by the Norwegian shipping company HAV Shipping AS, but they have repeatedly undergone maintenance at the Pregol shipyard in Russia’s Kaliningrad.

During periods when these two ships were sailing in Germany, numerous drone flights were recorded, including over the Kiel Bay area, where military facilities are located. The crew of the HAV Dolphin turned out to be entirely Russian, and the law enforcement inspection of the vessel was superficial.

European intelligence services consider the HAV Snapper and HAV Dolphin to be vessels that are highly likely operating in Russia’s interests.

Another example is the Russian cargo ship Lauga (previously named Ivan Shchepetov), near which German police spotted seven drones on May 16. A few days later, the ship arrived in Belgium, where it was inspected, but nothing was found. The crew consisted exclusively of Russians, who were questioned.

According to classified reports from German security agencies obtained by the journalists, in 2025 alone (as of November 19), there were 1,072 incidents involving 1,955 drones.

Forty-five percent of these incidents occurred during evening hours. It is noted that swarms of drones flew “almost exclusively over military facilities or near them.”

In only 29 out of 498 investigated cases were authorities able to identify the drone operators. In 88 percent of the cases, officials were not even able to determine the type of drone.