Europe and Central Asia Overview: December 2025

Europe: Suspicious drone activity increases

While suspicious drone overflights were more frequent in Germany in October, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France were most affected by suspicious overflights in November. ACLED records about 40 suspicious drone sightings — more than the previous spike in such events in September. The wave of overflights forced authorities to launch investigations and close airports for short periods of time. In Belgium, drone overflights affected aviation traffic in Brussels, Liège, and Antwerp, and were also observed over the Doel nuclear power plant, as well as repeatedly near or over military bases and airfields in Tournai, Oud-Heverlee, Diest, Leopoldsburg, Sint-Truiden, Schaffen, and Florennes. Attempts to down drones at the Belgian airbase in Kleine-Brogel — which media reports suggest hosts United States nuclear weapons and are considered a target of a “spy operation”¹ — were unsuccessful, whereas the Dutch military could not retrieve any wreckage after shooting at drones over the Volkel Air Base.² In France, overflights over the Eurenco gunpowder factory in Bergerac prompted local authorities to take additional security measures.³

As the sheer number and spread of the overflights overwhelm Europe’s airspace management, air defense, and investigators, questions arise around the severity of risks stemming from each and every overflight by aerial vehicles. Benevolent hobbyist drone pilots are increasingly scrutinized, while helicopters, airplanes, and even stars are mistaken for suspicious drones, triggering false alarms.⁴ National authorities have only raised suspicions about Russia’s role in certain drone incidents amid reported professionalism shown by flying trajectories. Most current air monitoring systems are unfit for drone detection, however, so attribution is complicated, leaving it to human observation in the majority of cases.

Russia: Ukraine escalates sabotage activity and  strikes on oil infrastructure 

Despite the almost 30% decrease in the overall number of Ukrainian drone and missile strikes in November, caused by fewer drone attacks on frontline Russian regions, Ukraine actually intensified strikes deep into Russia. While maintaining a focus on targeting oil and energy infrastructure, as in previous months, Ukraine focused its attacks on Russia’s ability to export oil in November. Ukraine repeatedly attacked two major Black Sea ports in Novorossiysk throughout the month. The most devastating attack on 25 November combined drone and missile strikes, affecting civilian and military infrastructure around the export hub more than the port itself. Although failing to completely disable Russia’s oil exports via the Black Sea, frequent disruptions have hindered the operations of exporting companies⁵ and undermined the confidence of Russia’s partners in the use of the Black Sea for transporting both Russian and Kazakhstani oil. In late November, Ukrainian naval drones also struck two oil tankers linked to Russia’s shadow fleet in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey. Another Russia-linked oil tanker reported damage due to explosions off the coast of Dakar, Senegal.⁶

Pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups also expanded their arson campaign to power substations. Non-auxiliary stand-alone power substations were rarely set on fire in the past, but ACLED records at least three attempts in November alone. Furthermore, saboteurs staged a wave of freight train derailments and also burnt locomotives, chipping away at Russia’s ability to transport oil and fuel, as well as military cargo. In addition, ACLED data suggest the reactivation of online scammers using blackmail and coercion tactics to induce arson of various objects. The return of this tactic could forebode a wave of attacks during the upcoming holiday season, similar to the one targeting banking and postal infrastructure across Russia in late December 2024. 

See ACLED’s latest report on the Russia-Ukraine shadow war Behind the lines: How Ukraine has outgunned Russia in sabotage.

Poland: Pro-Russian agents blow up a rail link to Ukraine

On 16 November, an explosion damaged the railway section near the Mika station between Lublin and Warsaw on a key supply route to Ukraine. This is the first such incident recorded beyond Ukraine and Russia. According to the prosecutor’s office of Poland, the main suspects are three Ukrainian citizens, of whom one was already convicted in Ukraine for sabotage on behalf of Russia.⁷ In a separate incident, Polish law enforcement found blank ammunition at a section of the railway near Sosnie. It claims that this was not a sabotage act, but another test of the country’s reaction to such events. In a diplomatic showdown, Poland and Russia closed each other’s consulates in Gdansk and Irkutsk, respectively.⁸ Relations between the two countries have been particularly strained since September, when up to 20 Russian attack and decoy drones entered Polish airspace during a Russian bombardment of western Ukraine. 

Poland is an important transit hub for supplies of Western aid to Ukraine, and therefore a frequent target of pro-Russian sabotage activity. While ACLED data show previous rail incidents were limited only to surveillance in March 2023 and tampering with radio signals in August 2023, several other notable acts of sabotage have been recorded. The last major acts of sabotage occurred in 2024. In April and May, Belarusian and Ukrainian citizens, as well as a Colombian, set ablaze two shopping malls and a warehouse in Warsaw, and in July, at least three explosive parcels were intercepted in storage facilities across Poland in a wave of incidents also affecting aviation security. Polish security services routinely detain individuals, including Ukrainian nationals, on suspicion of spying or preparing sabotage acts. In addition, Poland arrested two of its own former servicemen in April 2024, charging them with aiding Russian special services’ plans to assassinate Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a visit to Poland. 

Ukraine: Russia ramps up pressure on the frontlines and energy infrastructure 

In November, the situation for Ukrainian forces significantly worsened along several axes, as Russian forces occupied at least 25 settlements, mostly in the Zaporizhia and Donetsk regions. In the latter, Russian forces managed to take control of most of Pokrovsk and almost completely enveloped Myrnohrad by exploiting fog and rain to trickle in unobserved by Ukrainian drones. The seemingly imminent loss of the two towns will provide Russia with a launchpad to push further to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, as well as deeper into the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. Russian forces also resumed their offensive in Siversk, which had been relatively stable since their initial push in mid-2024. In the Kharkiv region, despite a Russian claim of controlling Kupiansk entirely, the battle for the town continues. Nevertheless, Ukrainian forces may have lost Vovchansk further north.⁹ A Russian assault on Huliaipole in the Zaporizhia region threatens a key Ukrainian supply line to the Donetsk region. Together, these Russian advances are exposing Ukraine’s growing personnel shortages as it becomes increasingly difficult for the Ukrainian forces to hold positions and control the situation along the 1,200-kilometer-long frontline.¹⁰ 

Russia’s campaign to disable Ukraine’s power generation and transmission escalated further during the month. These high-impact strikes possibly prompted renewed Ukrainian targeting of energy generation in Russia-occupied Ukraine. During a massive overnight attack on 8 November, Russia struck substations that supply electricity to the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear power plants. Subsequent waves of strikes destroyed the Trypilska and Zmiivska thermal power plants in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, respectively. Russia repeatedly targeted both in previous years, rendering repairs futile. In the aftermath of strikes on 28 November, half of Kyiv city again went dark. Russian strikes also seriously damaged energy infrastructure in the Odesa, Chernihiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. In a departure from focus on military and oil targets in Russia-controlled areas of Ukraine, mostly in Crimea, Ukrainian forces bombed the Zuivska and Starobesheve thermal power plants in the occupied part of the Donetsk region, reportedly leaving 65% of customers there without power, impacting hundreds of thousands of residents and causing interruptions in water and heating supply.¹¹

For more information, see the ACLED Ukraine Conflict Monitor.