UK Deploys Anti-Drone Team to Belgium After Repeated Airport Intrusions and Base Flyovers.

Britain has sent military experts and counter-drone systems to Belgium following a week of unidentified drone flights that disrupted airports and military bases. The move underscores growing European concern over hybrid threats and the need for rapid counter-UAS cooperation within NATO.

According to an interview of the Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Richard Knighton, conducted by the BBC on November 9, 2025, Britain is sending military experts and counter-drone equipment to Belgium after a week of unidentified drone overflights that repeatedly disrupted airports and probed military bases. The deployment follows a request from Belgium’s top defense leadership and aims to restore safe air operations while authorities investigate the incursions. London confirmed personnel and kit are moving quickly, without disclosing quantities, as Belgian services continue to track flights over areas including Brussels, Liège, and the Kleine Brogel Air Base.
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UK counter-drone teams deploy to Belgium after a week of disruptive drones over bases and airports (Picture source: Royal Air Force Regiment).

Over the past several days, airspace managers halted or diverted traffic when drones were detected in approach corridors, prompting a high-level security meeting and emergency procedures at Zaventem and Liège. The government has announced a National Air Safety Center and interim electronic countermeasures, with an initial operating capability targeted for January 1, 2026. While attribution remains under investigation, the pattern resembles hybrid pressure tactics seen elsewhere in Europe and has forced a rapid move from policy planning to operational mitigation.

The British contribution is expected to be a counter-UAS detachment equipped with a rapidly deployable detect-track-defeat suite used by RAF force protection units. Core components include radio-frequency sensing to spot control links, radar cueing and electro-optical cameras for identification, and electronic attack tools such as RF jammers and controlled GNSS disruption to break command links or force a safe landing. Reported performance for small Class 1 drones reaches out to roughly ten kilometers, depending on terrain and clutter, with modular tripods and vehicle-mounted kits allowing quick relocation between sites. The package is soft-kill centric rather than missile-based, reflecting the need to neutralize small multirotors without debris hazards in dense civilian areas.

The UK team will establish point-defense bubbles around runways, fuel farms, and munitions areas, plus mobile elements to shadow high-value assets on base perimeters. Their sensors generate a common low-altitude picture that can be fused with Skeyes air traffic data, accelerating go-no-go decisions and reducing runway closure times. The detachment’s geolocation tools support operator hunt, evidence collection, and safe corridor management so diverted flights can resume with confidence once a threat is suppressed or captured.

Beyond immediate protection, British specialists are expected to train Belgian crews on tactics, techniques, and procedures honed during UK homeland support missions. Joint drills will standardize checklists for tower controllers, military police, and explosive ordnance disposal teams, while establishing data-sharing mechanisms for future incidents. Defense planners view this as a bridge to a more permanent framework under NATO counter-UAS working groups, ensuring Belgium can surge layered protection across multiple sites during peaks in drone activity.

Belgium needs this reinforcement because national counter-drone capacity has lagged behind the accelerating threat. A small federal police C-UAS unit with limited RF jammers and portable sensors cannot simultaneously cover airports, depots, and sensitive bases during a coordinated surge. Years of constrained budgets dismantled short-range air defense formations in the 1990s, and although the Ministry of Defence is procuring modern systems such as NASAMS for higher-altitude threats, a nationwide kill chain for small drones remains incomplete. A domestic base-protection tender involving Belgian and European industry, including primes such as FN Herstal and Hensoldt, is moving forward but is not yet fielded.

Belgian officials have characterized the UK deployment as a crucial reinforcement of national resilience and consistent with Belgium’s Strategic Vision 2030, which identifies drone defense as a priority gap. The country hosts NATO and EU headquarters, a major cargo hub at Liège, and critical infrastructure, making it an attractive target for gray-zone probing. Rapid, visible allied support therefore serves both to harden key nodes and to signal collective resolve while investigators pursue attribution.

Unexplained drone overflights near military and energy infrastructure from the Nordics to the Baltics have tested national readiness below the threshold of armed conflict. By pairing British soft-kill systems with Belgian command and control, Brussels is building a repeatable playbook that other European airports and bases can scale as needed. If the combined team restores steady operations this week and refines procedures through live exercises, it will accelerate Belgium’s transition from gap-filling measures to an enduring, layered counter-UAS architecture anchored by domestic industry and NATO standards.