Europe must do more to guard its airports from Russian drones The Leipzig attack shows the danger of Russian-style hybrid warfare Aug 13th 2026 On the evening of August 4th Leipzig-Halle Airport in Germany came close to disaster. A drone carrying 800 grams of plastic explosives was flown into the wing of a fully fuelled Ukrainian Antonov An-124, but the bomb fell off the drone instead of detonating. Had it done so, the giant transport plane, used by Ukraine and NATO to carry military loads, would have gone up in a fireball, as would a second An-124 parked next to it. The drone, an FPV-style quadcopter, had been caught on camera entering the perimeter hours earlier. But no one noticed it until morning, when a bus driver spotted it, held it down with his foot and raised the alarm. The significance of the attempted attack for the future of airport security can
hardly be exaggerated, says Charlie Edwards of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who co-authored a report last month on Russia’s drone campaign against Europe. It was a brazen escalation over last year’s wave of reconnaissance and disruption drones around the continent. Leipzig-Halle is a big logistics hub for NATO and Ukraine. An attack with an armed drone is less hybrid warfare than warfare, full stop. Germany has not formally attributed it to Russia. But sources believe it soon will. Unlike other infringing drones, such as two big Chinese-made ones that overflew a Patriot missile facility in Germany two days later, the one in Leipzig was captured, providing a trove of evidence. Investigators say it is military-grade and suggest a state-linked actor built it. Rather than radio control, which airport sensors might have picked up, it used SIM cards and 5G antennas, like an ordinary mobile phone. Nico Lange, a former chief of staff at the German defence ministry, says its construction “reflected the design of Russian drones used in Ukraine”. After its discovery, a Boeing 757 collided with something at an altitude of 400 metres, possibly a spotter or repeater drone. Investigators reportedly found DNA traces on the captured drone linked to a failed attack in 2024, when parcel bombs exploded before being loaded aboard freight aircraft. That plot has been attributed to the GRU, a Russian spy service. Germany must take emergency action, argues Mr Lange. It should deploy multilayered detection systems at the country’s main airports by the end of August. These would combine radars that can pick up unique motion patterns, software to detect anomalies on mobile networks, cameras to track targets and thermal and acoustic sensors. Eight German airports are already due to get such enhanced capabilities, but at a slower pace. The Ukraine war has accelerated the development of drones that defy detection. They use frequency-hopping, encryption, fibre-optic cables and greater autonomy to baffle defences. Even with state-of-the-art detection systems, busy airports will be hard to defend. Weather, bird activity, background noise and dense infrastructure all help drones to hide.
After identifying a drone, the problem is what to do about it. Jamming it could disrupt the communications of commercial aircraft. Intercepting it could create debris that might damage aircraft or injure people. Shooting it down to avoid catastrophe may be the right thing to do. But without clear protocols, anti-drone teams may err on the side of caution. Leipzig got lucky. Europe’s airports have had a nasty warning. Even with stronger defences, the threat will not disappear. In this sort of warfare, even an attack that seems to fail may succeed in sowing anxiety and confusion.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/08/13/europe-must-do-more-to-guard-its- airports-from-russian-drones
Might Moldova merge with Romania? Its leaders are starting to mention an alternative route to joining the EU Aug 13th 2026 Could Moldova disappear? It has happened before: in 1918, just after separating from the collapsing Russian Empire, Moldova’s parliament voted to join neighbouring Romania. Today the country aims to join the European Union by 2030. But recently its leaders have suggested that if the EU blocks that, then it might unify with Romania, which is already a member. Maia Sandu, Moldova’s president, has said she would vote “yes” in a referendum on union with Romania. Eugen Osmochescu, a deputy prime minister, has called it “Plan B”. Nicusor Dan, Romania’s president, is a unionist, as are several other Romanian politicians. Most Moldovans speak Romanian, and most of its territory belonged to Romania between 1918 and 1940.
There is a realistic possibility that Moldova could complete the EU’s accession demands by 2029. There is also a realistic possibility that French Eurosceptics will stop it anyway. France’s constitution requires a referendum or the approval of three-fifths of both houses of parliament before assenting to let new countries into the EU. Moldova is unlikely to win either. Besides, by 2029 Marine Le Pen, a hard-right nationalist who opposes enlargement, may be president. That heightens the allure of the East German option: getting in by fusing with a neighbour. In Romania polls show backing for union at around 70%, and in Moldova around 40%. Moldovan support has doubled over the past decade, says Iulian Groza, the director of the Institute for European Policies and Reforms, a think-tank. The country has a population of some 2.9m; an estimated 850,000 (including those living abroad) have Romanian citizenship. That is more pragmatic than ideological, as it enables them to work in the EU. But pragmatism may also convince them to forgo independence in favour of EU and NATO membership inside Romania. In the meantime many vote in Romanian elections, and helped elect Mr Dan. Union is not on the near-term agenda, says Rufin Zamfir, a Romanian communications expert. Moldovan leaders’ statements “should be interpreted as an indirect message to European partners”. If the prospect of
membership is postponed or watered down, he says, “the credibility of Plan B increases...[and] becomes a political variable that Brussels cannot ignore.” Union would not be simple. Romania is not wealthy enough to subsidise unification as West Germany did. Moldova is poor and lacks control over Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway statelet. A 1994 agreement with the Gagauz, a pro-Russian minority, gives them the option of independence if Moldova ever joins Romania. Yet these issues may not be unresolvable. In its current straits, Russia can offer little support to Transnistria or Gagauzia. Already, because of Moldova’s trade agreement with the EU, 70% of Transnistria’s exports go to Europe. Gagauzia’s population of 100,000 is scattered over four separate enclaves. Independence surrounded by EU borders would not be an enticing option. Moldova is not the only candidate for disappearing. Large majorities in Albania and Kosovo, which is mostly ethnic-Albanian, favour uniting the countries. Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s acting prime minister, supports fusion, but Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, does not; he thinks the issue will be solved when both join the EU. The two leaders detest each other, and have whipped up clashes that have begun to divide their populations. It is unlikely but not inconceivable that within ten years, to achieve EU membership, Moldova will give way to a Greater Romania. A Greater Albania is harder to envisage.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/08/13/might-moldova-merge-with-romania
Europe’s dry rivers are exposing mammoths and Nazi warships Record heat and drought are crippling Aug 13th 2026 Western Europe is facing its fifth heatwave this year, and the waters of the Rhine and Danube rivers are the lowest since official records began in 1880. The gauge in Kaub, a medieval town in Rhineland-Palatinate, serves as the benchmark for the 1,230km-long river because it is near the Middle Rhine’s shallowest section. On August 12th it showed a maximum depth of 12cm. The previous record, during a drought in 2018, was 25cm. It could fall to single digits in the next few days, according to Germany’s association of inland shipping. That would cut the navigable Rhine in two. The Danube, the second-longest river in Europe (after Russia’s Volga), is hardly doing better. A gauge in Budapest shows 26cm, well below the
previous record low of 33cm in 2018. That threatens the electricity supply. Paks, a nuclear plant near Budapest that produces 30% of Hungary’s electricity, and Cernavoda, Romania’s state-owned nuclear plant, have been partly or completely switched off: they use the Danube’s water for cooling. Both countries’ governments have asked industry and households to cut back electricity use as much as possible. Car companies such as Audi in Hungary and Dacia in Romania have scaled back production. Along both rivers the low waters have exposed “hunger stones”, river boulders carved between the 15th and 19th centuries to mark low water levels and warn of crop failures and famine. In Budapest they laid bare a Wehrmacht motorcycle from the second world war. Near the village of Ryahovo in Bulgaria, the remains of a mammoth became visible. In the Serbian stretch of the Danube a fleet of Nazi-era warships were revealed, among some 200 the Germans scuttled in September 1944 to stop Soviet troops from using the river. The rivers play a big economic role. The Rhine accounts for roughly two- thirds of the European Union’s inland-waterway freight traffic by volume, and over 99% of its waterborne container transport. The Danube carries around 8% of EU freight traffic by volume. To avoid running aground, barges are transporting just 15-20% of normal loads, driving up transport