Published: · Region: Eastern Europe · Category: geopolitics

Russia’s New Drone Belt Near NATO Exposes Deepening Cross‑Border Strike Threat

Russia has quietly built 10 long-range drone launch sites along its borders with Ukraine and Belarus, adding at least 59 rails that could put parts of NATO territory, including Warsaw, within range. The expansion turns border regions into staging grounds for deeper strikes and raises new planning questions for European militaries, air defenses, and civilians who had assumed they were beyond the front line.

Russia’s war on Ukraine is moving closer to NATO’s doorstep, not through tank columns but through concrete pads and metal rails. Newly built drone bases along Russia’s borders with Ukraine and Belarus now appear capable of sending long‑range attack drones not just into Ukrainian cities, but deep toward allied territory, including the Polish capital, Warsaw. According to an investigation using leaked planning documents and recent satellite imagery, Russia has constructed 10 dedicated drone facilities around its western frontier. These sites host at least 59 new launch rails, with roughly 20 of them extended systems assessed as suitable for Moscow’s latest generation of long‑range loitering munitions. One complex reportedly includes storage…

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