{"id":1443786,"date":"2026-09-24T11:50:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/drones-from-containers-and-launch-from-the-sea-cia-warned-europe-about-russias-plan\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T11:50:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:50:36","slug":"drones-from-containers-and-launch-from-the-sea-cia-warned-europe-about-russias-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/drones-from-containers-and-launch-from-the-sea-cia-warned-europe-about-russias-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Drones from containers and launch from the sea: CIA warned Europe about Russia’s plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

US intelligence has warned European governments about a possible new Russian drone operation. The sources said the drones could be launched from merchant ships in the Mediterranean Sea, with Spain, France and Italy among the potential targets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is reported by<\/a> El Mundo, citing sources familiar with the information. Several defense analysts also confirmed to the publication that a CIA report describing a possible attack scenario was distributed among European ministries.<\/p>\n

This concerns, in particular, Russian Gerber drones. According to a source close to the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense, they can be hidden in shipping containers on merchant ships and then launched from the sea.<\/p>\n

“It’s not complicated at all,” the source said.<\/p>\n

The Gerbera is about two meters long, has a wingspan of about 2.5 meters, and can weigh up to 18 kilograms. The claimed flight range is up to 600 kilometers. According to sources, launching at a distance of 200-300 kilometers from the coast would allow the drone to stay in the air for about 1 hour and 15 minutes to two hours.<\/p>\n

At the same time, such drones are not designed for large-scale destruction of large objects. With an explosive load of about 4\u20135 kilograms, they can cause a fire, damage equipment, or temporarily stop the operation of a port or airport.<\/p>\n

European governments, according to sources, received the information after CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s secret visit to Moscow on August 25. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Ratcliffe traveled to Russia to warn Moscow about the consequences of a possible attack on NATO countries.<\/p>\n

Spain, France, and Italy were allegedly separately informed of a possible drone operation against one of these countries.<\/p>\n

According to British analyst Cyrus Giles, Russia may not necessarily choose the states closest to it, but rather places where an attack will have the greatest effect.<\/p>\n

“The target will not necessarily be the countries on the front lines. The target will be where Europe is weakest,” he said.<\/p>\n

Among the possible scenarios, analysts say there is not a large-scale strike, but sabotage: temporary closure of the airport, arson, flying over a military facility or damaging infrastructure. According to sources, the goal may be to demonstrate Russia’s ability to act far from its own borders.<\/p>\n

The idea of launching Gerbers from ships has been considered before. In particular, Defense Express wrote about the possibility of transporting such drones by sea and launching them from international waters.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, cases of Russian drones appearing near borders have already been recorded in Europe. The El Mundo article also mentions the recently discovered Gerbera-2 near the Polish coast, although, according to the data provided, this device arrived from Kaliningrad via Lithuania, and was not launched from the sea.<\/p>\n

According to sources, the intensification of such operations could be aimed at weakening support for Ukraine, creating divisions within NATO and increasing anxiety in European societies. The WSJ also reported on a broader intensification of Russian hybrid actions in Europe, including sabotage, cyberattacks and drone incidents.<\/p>\n

Lithuanian Foreign Minister K\u0119stutis Budrys, commenting on the threat, said: “Russia will not hide. We simply must avoid the consequences.”<\/p>\n

As reported, journalists described several possible scenarios in which Russia could try to test NATO’s readiness for confrontation. These include sabotage of underwater infrastructure, covert operations, seizure of strategic territories, and an offensive in the Suwalki Corridor area.<\/a><\/p>\n

Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , X<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> , and Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US intelligence has warned European governments about a possible new Russian drone operation. The sources said the drones could be launched from merchant ships in the Mediterranean Sea, with Spain, France and Italy among the potential targets. This is reported by El Mundo, citing sources familiar with the information. Several defense analysts also confirmed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":1443779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76870],"class_list":["post-1443786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1443786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1443779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1443786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1443786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}