A lot of these drone scares remind me of UFO flaps. There was one over London Gatwick not long ago and no one ever managed to photograph the thing as far as I can remember.
I'm sure NATO has drone swarms all over Russian bases right now, but that's the bit they miss. Part of a long tradition of trying out each other's defences.
NATO has been buzzing the borders of Russia all my lifetime with aircraft erc and beyond (Gary Powers anyone?) I doubt they ever stopped and have moved onto drones by now.
Even in Cold War Berlin each side tried to test out the limits of the other although the Red Army was allowed into a couple of places in West Berlin by agreement like a war memorial.
Both sides have been chancing their arm most of my lifetime. We get reports of Russian planes and ships round here all the time. The west does it to them as well... and it is no secret that British and American folk have been involved in the Ukrainian conflict. It allows both militaries to justify their spending so it is mutually beneficial as well as being brinkmanship.
Does NATO have satellites, or do the Americans? With the recent threats to the ICC and more and more American politicians turning against NATO, it's getting quite hard to take American NATO membership seriously.
However, I doubt the drones are part of any kind of spying operation. They're trivially detectable, have limited range, and I very much doubt these journalists found anything that European intelligence agencies haven't found already. If the Russians want to map out European bases, they can just look at the data leaked by Fitbit/Strava and "data broker" companies.
Instead, I firmly believe this is a power move intended to spread fear. They're saying "look at what we're capable of", and _maybe_ measuring anti-drone response strategies, but any competent military wouldn't let themselves get baited into showing their hand too much. The Dutch army has stated that there's no need to panic and that the anti drone measures we currently have is perfectly capable of taking action if necessary.
Russia showing off their capabilities is hardly news, either. Russia likes taunting its enemies by flying fighter jets and sending nuclear subs through shipping channels. The same way America likes to send war ships through shipping lanes in Asia, and during the cold war by flying spy planes awfully close to borders.
Drone swarms are seen as a more cost efficient way of gathering intel than one or two larger ones. Not all the drones reported are cheap according to some reports and may have been perceived as UFOs by civilians.
I take the point about satellites. That is completely valid. However, one thing military industrial complexes are good at is creating jobs and gobbling up money. Russia's is no different from the west's in that regard.
If you can take out the target using less resources, how is this bad? If a drone cost as much as 1/100 of an air defense missile, it means that you can have more drones than your enemy has missiles given the equal budget.
The f35, the growler, awacs, etc. Mean there will be nowhere close enough to launch low cost fpvs against the west in a war. Air dominance is what we do.
Look what happened to iran and all their air defences when f35s showed up lol.
So then youre left with shahed style drones that have range but are still fairly slow, loud, lack good guidance in jammed environments and will be shot down easily.
So you put better guidance on them so they dont need satellite connections and make them stealthy...oh wait now its just a regular ass cruise missile.
I'm sure NATO has drone swarms all over Russian bases right now, but that's the bit they miss. Part of a long tradition of trying out each other's defences.