Three drones detected over the Doel nuclear power plant and Liège airport

Engie spokesperson, Hellen Smeets, has indicated that the devices were located by the plant’s security workers and has
pointed out that there was no impact on operations. “The competent services are monitoring the situation,” he said, as reported by the Belgian radio station RTL.

This event took place hours after a brief suspension of operations at Liège airport, between 7:30 p.m. and 8:25 p.m., due to detection of various unmanned devices in the area, in line with several similar incidents in recent days at the facilities.

These new episodes occur after several drone incursions have taken place in Belgium in recent weeks, which They have flown over military bases or airports.

In fact, last Tuesday the Brussels-Zaventem airport, the country’s main airport, closed its airspace due to the presence of drones near the terminal.

This Monday, the newspaper The Newspaper informed that the Belgian federal police has a team in charge of detecting and neutralizing “hostile” drones for four years, but that his intervention was not requested in response to Tuesday’s airspace violation over the airport in the country’s capital.

An internal source told the Belgian publication that this team has “30 certified agents” and “two antennas to detect hostile drones, four signal jammers to block them and three net launchers to immobilize them.”

The Belgian news agency noted that the authorities would have realized too late that they could deploy the anti-drone team.

UK military support

He UK will provide military support to Belgium following the series of incursions by drones of unknown origin into its airspace, the new Chief of the British Defense Staff, Air Marshal Richard Knighton, told the BBC this Sunday.

Knighton said that his Belgian counterpart requested assistance this week and that, after analyzing the request, he and Defense Minister John Healey agreed to deploy British personnel and equipment to Belgium, in coordination with NATO.

“It is important to make clear, however, that We do not know – and the Belgians still do not know either – the origin of those dronesbut we will help them by providing our equipment and troops, who have already begun to deploy to assist Belgium,” explained the military chief.

Belgian and German politicians have pointed to Russia as possibly responsible for the incursions, which Knighton considered “plausible,” although Moscow denies it.

Belgium announced on Friday that it will strengthen its defense against drones with 50 million euros and the support of the Army of neighboring Germany, which will now be joined by troops from the United Kingdom.