{"id":555447,"date":"2025-11-07T16:45:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T16:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/555447\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T16:45:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T16:45:14","slug":"german-luftwaffe-dispatches-drone-defense-experts-to-help-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/555447\/","title":{"rendered":"German Luftwaffe dispatches drone-defense experts to help Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERLIN \u2014 The German military has sent specialists to Belgium to help authorities there combat drones following sightings near crucial military facilities<\/a>, including those housing nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The Bundeswehr announced the move in a press release late Thursday. According to the military, first units of the Luftwaffe \u2013 Germany\u2019s air force \u2013 have already arrived in Belgium, where they are investigating the situation on the ground and coordinating with the Belgian armed forces. Further German forces would \u201csoon follow,\u201d the military said. <\/p>\n

Belgium had requested assistance from Germany following a \u201csignificant increase\u201d in sightings of unidentified unmanned aerial vehicles, including in the vicinity of Belgian military facilities, according to the German government.<\/p>\n

Germany was the only country capable of helping \u201cimmediately and comprehensively\u201d with the neighboring country\u2019s \u201cconsiderable drone problem,\u201d German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told Defense News on Friday.<\/p>\n

The first of several drone sightings over Belgium occurred on Oct. 31 at the Kleine-Brogel military air base, followed by sightings near civilian airports that have disrupted air travel<\/a> in the following days.<\/p>\n

Kleine-Brogel hosts sensitive military assets, including U.S. nuclear weapons. Other air bases that have experienced drone sightings in early November also includes the airbase that Belgium\u2019s freshly-delivered F-35 fighter jets are currently located at. <\/p>\n

Belgian authorities have said they had \u201clittle doubt\u201d that a state actor is behind the incursions, with Russia being named as a suspect in intelligence circles, Belgian media reported<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In its statement, the German government described the troops it was sending to Belgium as \u201cspecialized forces of the air force for the detection of and defense from small unmanned aerial vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defense ministry in Berlin described the mission as being of \u201climited duration,\u201d though it did not specify how long it was planned to continue. The Bundeswehr\u2019s press office declined to provide additional details about either the duration of the mission or the units involved.<\/p>\n

The German defense ministry emphasized the speed of the deployment, saying that it proved the close cooperation within NATO and European solidarity in \u201cdealing with hybrid threats.\u201d <\/p>\n

Linus H\u00f6ller is Defense News’ Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds a master\u2019s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN \u2014 The German military has sent specialists to Belgium to help authorities there combat drones following sightings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[1789,15016,5606,5607,5602,2595,2000,299,1824,177512,161717,2821,55631],"class_list":{"0":"post-555447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-circulated-c4isrnet","10":"tag-circulated-defense-news","11":"tag-defense-news","12":"tag-dn-dnr","13":"tag-drones","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-europe","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-kleine-brogel","18":"tag-military-base","19":"tag-nato","20":"tag-unmanned"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115509429728992380","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}