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In Switzerland, drones were recently spotted flying over a nuclear power plant, a military facility, and other sensitive sites. Pictured here is an attack drone used by the Swiss Army.
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Drones are repeatedly spotted flying over critical infrastructure in Switzerland. This could be due to harmless reasons or targeted espionage. An expert explains why this uncertainty is problematic.
The drone sighting over the Gösgen nuclear power plant in the canton of Solothurn is the latest in a series of similar incidents in Switzerland. In recent months, unmanned aerial vehicles have been observed at locations including the ABC Laboratory in Spiez, Bern—the Swiss agency responsible for protecting the population against nuclear, biological, and chemical threats—the Meiringen military airfield in Bern, and the Laufenburg power switching station in Aargau.
It remains unclear whether the recent incident in Gösgen was a coordinated operation or simply a harmless hobby drone flight. According to security experts, it is precisely this uncertainty that is the real problem.
“We don’t really know for sure,” says Ivo Capaul, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich, in an interview with blue News about the current threat situation. “The main challenge, first and foremost, is being able to distinguish which overflights are the work of state actors and which are simply the work of lone actors with no political motivation.” According to him, false sightings also play a recurring role. Birds or small aircraft are regularly mistakenly reported as drones.
Specifically: Individual drone sightings over critical infrastructure do not, in and of themselves, constitute evidence of a foreign espionage or sabotage operation. This became clear earlier this year at the Laufenburg power substation. What was initially considered a possible security incident later turned out to be an authorized inspection flight commissioned by Swissgrid, the national grid operator. Investigations are also still ongoing in the Gösgen case.
The Stern von Laufenburg, a Swissgrid substation that manages the flow of electricity between Switzerland and Germany.
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Nevertheless, it would be just as wrong to dismiss the incidents as insignificant. “The range of possible perpetrators is broad,” says Capaul. He notes that state actors or those commissioned by the state are conceivable, “who, for example, are pursuing espionage objectives or scouting out targets for future acts of sabotage.”
However, the psychological impact of such flights is just as important. “The effects in the information sphere should not be overlooked,” says Capaul. He is referring to the public’s loss of trust in the government if it gives the impression that it is unable to adequately protect critical infrastructure.
«With relatively little effort, an aggressor employing hybrid tactics can achieve a disproportionately large impact»
Ivo Capaul
Defense Policy Expert
Capaul also describes this very mechanism in a recently published analysis on hybrid conflict. In it, he argues that hybrid attacks exert their impact not only through the incident itself, but primarily through the uncertainty surrounding their origin and intent.
“With relatively little effort, an aggressor using hybrid tactics can achieve a disproportionately large impact,” writes Capaul. Even just a few confirmed attacks could be enough to trigger a wave of further reports, speculation, and copycat attacks.
A look at Europe illustrates this tension. Since the confirmed incursions by Russian drones into Polish airspace and the temporary airport closures in Oslo and Copenhagen in September 2025, the number of reported drone flights over critical infrastructure has increased significantly across Europe.
A Russian Gerbera drone, approximately two meters long, such as those used during the incursion into Polish airspace.
Featured image: Ukrainian government
Capaul, however, urges caution: “It is clear that a significant portion of the overflights were unlikely to have been carried out by state actors.” His analysis shows that of 61 reported drone sightings in the second half of 2025, only three could be definitively attributed to Russia. Forty-one cases remained unresolved, 14 turned out to be misidentifications, and three were hobby drones.
There are good reasons why Russia remains the focus of attention. According to the Federal Council, Russia continues to pose the most significant hybrid threat to Europe—and thus also to Switzerland. At the same time, Capaul warns against automatically concluding that every unexplained sighting is part of a Russian operation. This, in particular, could be part of the effect of hybrid warfare: the aggressor benefits when uncertainty and speculation increase.
Ulrike Franke, a security expert at the think tank “European Council on Foreign Relations,” also considers this distinction important in an interview with SRF. While she assumes that a “significant portion” of the sightings can be attributed to private drones or misidentifications, she also notes that there is “evidence suggesting that drones are increasingly being deployed for espionage purposes.” Particularly suspicious, for example, are formation flights, nighttime operations, or systematic flight patterns.
For Switzerland, therefore, the question is not so much whether every drone can be intercepted immediately, but rather whether it can be reliably detected at all. Capaul sees this as the biggest gap. “Personally, I consider expanding systems for detecting drones—that is, sensors such as specialized cameras or radar—to be a priority. First, we need to understand exactly what the threat looks like before we try to combat it.”
The police use drones, for example, to search for missing or fugitive persons, to document accidents and criminal incidents, and for crowd management at events.
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Protection against small drones generally operates on the principle of “point defense.” This means that detection and defense systems must be installed directly at a facility well in advance of an incident. It would therefore be extremely costly to equip all critical infrastructure or military facilities in Switzerland with such systems on a nationwide basis.
Capaul also urges caution when it comes to actual drone defense. While some police departments have resources such as radio or GPS jammers—as well as, in some cases, net launchers—to neutralize drones, However, bringing down a drone is by no means always the best solution.
“Shooting down drones over populated areas or over critical infrastructure may, in some cases, cause more damage than simply allowing them to fly over,” says Capaul. Accordingly, such an action must “always be carefully considered.”
The Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) does not view the drone sightings reported so far as a major threat to Swiss airspace. “We have taken note of these sightings. The FOCA is responsible for aviation safety. These sightings do not appear to pose a threat to that safety,” the agency stated in response to an inquiry.
Enforcing existing rules, however, is a challenge: “The problem is that drone pilots often cannot be identified, so fines cannot be issued.”
Currently, there are technical means of detecting drones. “However, not all of them are visible. In particular, non-cooperative drones—which cannot be identified remotely—are difficult to detect using conventional methods,” the agency writes.
However, the federal government will continue to address the issue of unidentifiable unmanned aerial vehicles and possible countermeasures. An interdepartmental federal working group led by the DDPS is currently addressing these outstanding issues.
17.07.2026, 23:30
