What we know about CIA warning of Russian drone threat to southern Europe
The US has warned southern states of a possible Moscow attack that would see Russia fire 600 km-range drones from commercial ships at Spain, France and Italy. We examine what is known and how the threat is mounting.
US intelligence services have shared a report with several European countries pointing to a possible Russian operation using drones against targets in Spain, France or Italy, according to Spanish media.The information was first revealed by journalist Xavier Colás — a former Russia correspondent — in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. It traces the origin of the alert to CIA director John Ratcliffe's visit to Moscow last August, and sets out a very specific attack scenario: drones launched from merchant vessels disguised as ordinary commercial traffic.The Gerbera, a cheap and hard-to-detect weaponAccording to information gathered by anonymous sources in Lithuania's Ministry of Defence, and reported by El Mundo, the device in question would be the Gerbera, a small Russian drone (barely two metres long and weighing 18 kilos) capable of travelling up to 600 kilometres at around 160 km/h.Its limited explosive payload — between four and five kilos — is not intended to cause mass destruction, but to have a symbolic and disruptive effect: temporarily shutting down an airport, starting a fire, or demonstrating that Moscow can strike at Europe's rear without having to cross any land border.This method is not just a distant hypothesis.
The Kremlin has already tested launching drones from maritime platforms. Only last February, a Swedish naval unit detected a drone taking off from a Russian intelligence vessel in the Öresund Strait. Add to this the precedent set by the armed-drone attack at Leipzig airport in Germany, which Berlin attributes to Russian intelligence, and the episode of 19 unarmed drones flying over Polish airspace a year ago.Why southern Europe, and not only the eastern flankThe Kremlin's logic, according to analysts consulted by the Spanish newspaper, is driven not by geographical proximity but by political vulnerability.
British expert Keir Giles, a specialist in Russian military strategy, argues that Moscow will look for "the weakest point in Europe", explicitly naming countries such as Spain, which lack integrated air defence systems suited to this type of threat.This idea ties directly into a warning issued months ago by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte: a Russian missile would take barely ten minutes longer to reach Madrid than to reach Warsaw.
Rutte sought to dismantle the perception that southern Europe lies outside the "eastern flank" and is therefore beyond the radius of risk posed by the war that Russia launched against Ukraine in 2022, which threatens the entire continent.Intimidation using drones launched from the Mediterranean, slower but just as symbolic, fits that same message: distance is no longer a guarantee of security for any European country.Spain, France and Italy also share another risk factor highlighted in the investigation: all three will hold elections in 2027 and have political forces capable of capitalising on the social fatigue generated by years of war in Ukraine (despite Trump's stated desire to end the conflict before winter) — something that Vladimir Putin's government could try to exploit with a low-cost action and high media impact.Sánchez, defence spending and tension with WashingtonThe report comes at a particularly delicate moment for Spain in security terms.
Pedro Sánchez's government has been reluctant to raise defence spending to the new threshold demanded by NATO, a stance that has led to open tension with Donald Trump and to an almost broken bilateral relationship. One of the latest examples was seen at the UN General Assembly, where Sánchez refused to attend the reception hosted by Trump in New York.In this context, an intelligence alert of this kind adds further pressure on Moncloa: the lack of investment in air-defence and anti-missile systems is a weak point laid bare just as the perception of a direct threat to Spanish soil grows.The Russian diaspora and asset ties on the Costa del SolThe debate about Spain's exposure to Russian interests is not limited to the military sphere.
For years, various journalistic investigations have documented the presence of assets linked to circles around the Kremlin along the Andalusian coast. Among the best-known cases is that of Liudmila Ocheretnaya — formerly Liudmila Putina — Vladimir Putin's ex-wife, who together with her current husband, Artur Ocheretny, came to own two luxury homes in the Lomas del Rey complex (Marbella) worth 2.2 million euros.Those reports at the time already pointed to an urgent sale of those properties for fear of being included on the European Union sanctions list, after the United Kingdom had already sanctioned her.Subsequent journalistic investigations have continued to document the web of companies and foundations linked to Ocheretny and his circle, keeping alive the question of the real extent of Russian economic interests, direct or indirect, on Spanish territory.
There has been no recent public confirmation that the properties were in fact sold, nor of Ocheretnaya's current residence status on the Costa del Sol.A threat Europe can no longer treat as distantThe report cited by El Mundo itself recalls that Moscow has for months been operating "below the threshold of war", combining isolated acts of sabotage with tests of reaction such as those carried out in Poland or Germany.What is new now is that, according to the CIA, this pattern of escalation could spread to the Mediterranean, shattering the false sense of distance that for years has protected countries such as Spain, at least in the collective imagination.
As Rutte sums it up, in today's Europe a difference of ten minutes no longer separates a safe country from one at risk.