LONDON (AP) — Britain is sending equipment and personnel to Belgium after a series of drone sightings near airports, the head of the British armed forces said Sunday.
Last week, Belgium's main international airport in Brussels and one of Europe's largest cargo airports in Liege were forced to temporarily close due to drone incursions. This happened after a series of flights of unidentified drones near a military base where US nuclear weapons are stored.
Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, head of the British military, said Britain had agreed to “send our men and our equipment to Belgium to help them” after a request from Belgian authorities.
“We don't know – and the Belgians don't yet know – the source of these drones, but we will help them by providing our equipment and capabilities, which have already begun to be deployed to help Belgium,” Knighton told the BBC.
In recent months, drone incidents across Europe have forced airports to suspend flights one at a time. Russia has been blamed in some cases, but Belgium has not said who controls the drones. Belgian Defense Minister Theo Franken said he believed some of the incidents were part of a “spy operation” that could not have been carried out by amateurs.
Belgium is home to the headquarters of NATO and the European Union, as well as Europe's largest financial clearing house, holding tens of billions of euros in frozen Russian assets. Many EU countries want to use these assets as collateral to provide loans to Ukraine, but Belgium has so far resisted.
