I still haven’t seen any specifics on the type of drones spotted at those airports. Is the other side just sending random people with cheap FPV drones? Or are they flying Shaheds around airports? I could take my 6” FPV drone and go buzz the tower at a nearby international airport, if I wanted. It costs less than 500€ for the entire kit and with ELRS and high power analog VTx you can do it from kilometers away and run before they catch you. Obviously it’s illegal as fuck.
It's thought that it's Russian illegal agents doing this. A lot of them locals recruited online. Really cheap ops done by really cheap people, using cheap and deniable gear.
It makes sense. In the Netherlands, young people (<18) have been recruited for all kinds of stuff by organized crime; bank account money muling as part of laundering operations, laying bombs, getting drugs / other smuggled stuff out of shipping containers in ports, that kind of thing. They target these because for them, a few hundred € is a huge sum, and the legal system is very forgiving to underage people, assuming they even get caught.
I heard it’s a mix. Suggestible local people on Telegram are coaxed to launch civilian stuff at a time and place. This clouds the sensor data of the true launches.
I don’t know if we’ve seen Shahads since 10 September, but note that Shahads can be ship-launched as well.