The forces of Finland, where the mines are made, and Estonia already operate the proximity sea mines. Estonia bought them in 2021. 

The Danish acquisition will take place as part of a pentalateral joint procurement agreement that includes Finland and Lithuania, as well as Germany and Norway, who have not yet publicly announced a contract to buy the device. 

Lithuania’s ministry of defense similarly said that its procurement of Blocker was taking place under the Naval Mines Cooperation, a procurement agreement that grew out of a program launched in 2024.

Aside from joint buying, the NMC agreement is meant to “strengthen cooperation on logistics, training, exercises and the lifespan of the systems,” the Danish ministry of defense said. 

The Finnish military signed a contract with manufacturer Forcit Defence in June on behalf of the five countries participating in the NMC’s procurement scheme. The contract was worth “hundreds of millions of Euros,” the Finnish government said.

Ten countries signed the pact’s original declaration of intent: Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Finland and Estonia, all of which are members of NATO.

Germany may still announce a procurement decision this year, German industry publication Hartpunkt reported, citing “well-informed circles.”

“Selecting Finland as the lead nation of the naval mines cooperation project is a reflection of the Finnish Navy’s long-standing capability in naval mining,” the country’s military wrote in a statement. 

Forcit Defence advertises the Blocker mine as having the explosive power equivalent to a ton of TNT. It detects ships using a range of sensors. 

Naval mines have been front and center in the news this year, with Iran’s use of the technology to block the Strait of Hormuz and hold a large part of global energy supplies hostage in response to the U.S.-Israeli campaign against it. 

The Baltic Sea has also become a key point of tension, particularly since 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO, the sea is now entirely surrounded by the alliance, except for Russia’s Kaliningrad and Leningrad Oblast coasts. This is a strategic headache for Russia, whose ships must pass through the narrow Danish straits and onward through the Kattegat and Skagerrak to reach the open ocean. 

Russia has repeatedly warned that it will not accept being cut off from the Atlantic. “If we do not give them a firm rebuff, the British, French and even the Baltic states will soon become so emboldened that they will try to completely block our country’s access to the seas, at least in the Atlantic basin,” said Nikolai Patrushev, President Vladimir Putin’s aide and chairman of Russia’s Maritime Board, in a February interview with Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty and reproduced by the Maritime Board of the Russian Federation. “If this situation cannot be resolved peacefully, the Navy will break through and eliminate the blockade.”

Production started Oct. 15 in Levanger, where the companies will build 37 of the Norwegian Army’s 54 new tanks, KNDS said in an email. The facility took 18 months to establish and has a stated capacity of up to 36 tanks annually.

The production launch follows the partners’ inauguration of the manufacturing and testing infrastructure in late April. October’s milestone caps an existing procurement arrangement rather than marking a new tank purchase.

The industrial tie-up forms part of a broader mutual embrace that the two governments formalized in February through the sweeping Hansa Arrangement. Its priorities include maritime operations, combined-arms land warfare, rapid reinforcement, defense industry, and space-based surveillance, targeting and communications, according to a readout by Norway’s Defense Ministry.

An ongoing submarine partnership offers the clearest example of how equipment purchases can bind the countries’ armed forces and security strategies together. Both plan to operate six identical Type 212CD submarines, supported by cooperation on personnel training and new maintenance facilities at Haakonsvern, near Bergen, the Norwegian ministry said. Berlin and Oslo are also collaborating on the next-generation 3SM maritime strike missile.

Although industry cooperation forms the bedrock, the relationship is moving beyond mere procurement questions. Germany contributed approximately 1,800 troops to Norway’s Cold Response exercise in March, according to the German government. Norway said in February that discussions were underway about German equipment pre-positioning on its territory.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 accelerated a longstanding partnership, researchers at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs concluded in a December 2024 assessment. Germany’s growing dependence on Norwegian gas also strengthened its interest in protecting offshore infrastructure, researcher Øyvind Svendsen explained.

Germany’s military is undergoing a distinct shift toward a bigger role in the North Atlantic. Its new P-8A Poseidon aircraft, for example, are covering the so-called GIUK gap between Greenland, Iceland and the UK, a crucial area that Russian nuclear submarines must pass through to reach the open Atlantic. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the aircraft would operate from Norwegian and Icelandic air bases for this mission, Defense News previously reported. 

Space cooperation offers another avenue for growing collaboration. During a March visit to Andøya, Pistorius identified a joint imaging-reconnaissance satellite constellation as a project he wanted to pursue, according to his ministry. 

In April, Oslo and Berlin agreed to create a bilateral space working group, with priorities including launch capabilities, space-based surveillance and secure communications. Norway is home to a valuable spaceport on the island of Andøya, which is particularly well situated for launching satellites into polar orbits, which are preferable for spy satellites. 

The two North Sea countries are also cooperating in a number of other formats, including under the Multinational Multi Role Tanker Transport Fleet, which pools access to Airbus A330 MRTT aircraft for aerial refueling, strategic transport and medical evacuation, and EU HYDEF, where Germany and Norway are among five co-funders working on phase one of a European hypersonic interceptor missile. 

The proposed measures would advance a broader strategic partnership that calls for Canada and Europe to assume greater responsibility for shared security while reinforcing NATO. The draft, first reported by Politico, does not announce new troop deployments or weapons purchases.

Under the current wording, Canada is promised negotiations for access to services from Europe’s Galileo satellite constellation, as well as exploring Canadian participation in the European IRIS² satellite communications project. 

Canada’s vast natural resources appear to be of particular interest to Brussels, with an entire section dedicated to energy and critical raw materials. The draft proposes exploring stockpiling of critical resources needed by civilian and defense industries to cushion supply chains against market fluctuations and geopolitical disruption.

There’s already some dissonance about some specific wording. In mid-September, European Commission President Ursula  von der Leyen announced her plan to make Canada the EU’s first “associate member” –  to the surprise of some European capitals. Now, the draft joint document for the ongoing summit has removed this language, speaking instead of an “ever-closer association of Canada to the EU, short of full membership itself.”

Canada is choosing not to get caught up in the war of terminology, with Politico quoting Carney as saying that “the good news is it doesn’t matter about specific names or nomenclature.” 

Two key unifiers have driven Europe and Canada closer together: Russia’s war against Ukraine, and U.S. President Donald Trump. Canada launched Operation Reassurance in 2014 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has led NATO’s multinational battle group in Latvia since 2017. Cooperation and coordination deepened further after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

Trump’s threats against NATO, Europe and Canadian sovereignty alike have accelerated the integration process. Particularly the Arctic has emerged as an area of interest. In February, Canada and Denmark signed a memorandum on defense cooperation amid Trump’s insistence that Greenland become a part of the United States, having threatened military force. Pointedly, the agreement with Ottawa was signed with Danish, Greenlandic and Faroese delegates present. It covered innovation, industrial cooperation, mutual logistics support, personnel, training and exercises. 

And in March, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden held a summit in Oslo that laid the cornerstone for an Arctic-centric, security-focused format and concrete actions to secure an area that these countries increasingly perceive as a zone of joint security interests, especially vis-à-vis Russia and, to a lesser extent, China. 

Finland and Norway also separately signed Arctic security-themed agreements with Canada in April and March, respectively, covering intelligence sharing, interoperability, logistics and maritime topics like the building of icebreakers, among other topics. 

In July, Canada announced its intention to buy up to twelve new German-Norwegian submarines, preferring the European boats over a South Korean offer, just a few weeks after Ottawa singled out Sweden’s Saab as the preferred candidate to supply it with six new airborne early warning and control aircraft. 

Around the same time, Canada secured preferential access to procurement under the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defense-financing program, allowing Canadian-origin components to account for up to 80% of the procurement value of equipment purchased with its loans.

The report’s findings point to a potentially broader threat than German military security specialists had previously anticipated. Their concerns had centered on installations training Ukrainian troops, alongside naval bases and shipyards. The new assessment says authorities can no longer geographically confine specific sites deemed vulnerable, warning instead of an all-around deterioration in the security situation, with concrete actions possible in the near term.

The reassessment follows the discovery of an apparently crashed drone near Wunstorf air base in northern Germany in September. Investigators found a can containing explosives a few meters away, according to the report. They suspect the aircraft may have targeted military planes rather than civilian cargo aircraft.

WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that investigators believe the Wunstorf drone had lain near the base for about two years, citing technical analysis by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office. Its construction resembled an explosives-equipped drone used in a failed attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in early August, the outlets reported, though it would have significantly predated the Leipzig incident.

The military analysis draws a distinction between the two incidents: While Leipzig presented an indirect threat to German forces, targeting Ukrainian aircraft instead, Wunstorf likely involved the Bundeswehr itself as the target. The assessment describes Russia as almost certainly possessing the capability, and very likely an increased motivation, to act against German forces and facilities, as well as Ukrainian partners in Germany.

It also concludes that Russia’s use of drones as weapons crossed a previously anticipated “red line” involving an intention to cause physical damage or potentially lethal effects.

The German government has publicly attributed the Leipzig drone attack to Russia following a month-long investigation.

The analysis links the suspected campaign to efforts to weaken political and public support for Ukraine in Germany. At the operational level, it assesses that Moscow seeks to disrupt equipment deliveries and training, undermining Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

An Operational Command spokesperson told WDR that the Bundeswehr currently considers the sabotage risk “substantial” because of the increased threat. This places it at the second-highest level of the military’s risk assessment scale, SZ reported.

The military is strengthening protective measures at its installations to safeguard personnel and facilities, the spokesperson said.

The warning follows suspicious drone flights over sites associated with Germany’s Arrow 3 missile-defense system and Patriot maintenance facilities. German security authorities suspect Russian involvement in those and other surveillance incidents, WDR reported.

Russia has consistently denied involvement in sabotage and hybrid attacks, and has blamed Germany for staging incidents to whip up anti-Russian sentiment. Moscow’s ambassador to Berlin previously dismissed Germany’s allegations over Leipzig as “absurd” and described the incident as a “provocation.”

Martin Herem, a retired general who took office Sept. 16, floated the idea in interviews after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. He told The Baltic Sentinel and the daily Postimees that Estonia should study the option, saying air-to-air weapons are the most effective counter to the drones.

He gave no aircraft type, budget or timeline.

Herem has not committed to buying anything. He told The Baltic Sentinel he is also looking at computer-controlled cannons, heavy machine guns and fast, jet-powered interceptor drones. He noted that Estonia already has pilots, air-control expertise and L-39 trainers.

The two L-39 Albatros trainers Estonia uses are leased, according to the Estonian military’s website. Their civilian status and lease terms would complicate any move to arm them, the former head of Estonia’s air force said back in April.

The proposal responds to a threat that is growing fast. Yuriy Ihnat, a Ukrainian air force spokesman, said Ukraine intercepted about 40% of jet-powered drones in July and 60% in August, according to Hromadske. In the same period, the number of jet-powered drones fired at Ukraine increased from a few hundred to several thousands a month. Ukraine’s defense ministry puts their speed at more than 400 kilometers per hour.

None of the three Baltic states have their own fighter fleet. NATO allies police their skies on rotation, and allied jets have shot down drones over Latvia in June and over Lithuania on Sept. 15. Estonia’s air-policing rotation currently includes Turkish F-16s at Ämari. Spanish F-18s were scheduled to depart after their rotation in “early October,” according to the Estonian military.

Neither Latvia nor Lithuania have floated buying jet aircraft of their own. Both are putting money into cheaper counter-drone layers instead, and Latvia is considering the Embraer’s A-29 Super Tucano, a light turboprop fighter aircraft, for air-defense missions.

Lithuania’s government on Sept. 2 authorized the defense ministry to skip standard procurement rules to buy trial batches of interceptor drones and radars. Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said Vilnius would favor systems already tested in Ukraine. Lithuania is also testing Ukraine’s SkyFortress acoustic detection system.

Latvia is building what State Secretary Airis Rikveilis called a “wall of drones” on its eastern border. It will combine radars, interceptor drones and command equipment.

NATO planners have repeatedly said that using heavy fighters against small drones is disproportionately expensive. Interceptor drones and ground-based air defenses often cost substantially less to procure and to operate.

The Bundestag budget committee had approved the first four vessels July 8, alongside an option for four more. The Defense Ministry said the decision to exercise that option will give the German Navy a single, eight-ship class intended chiefly for anti-submarine warfare.

Delivery of the first vessel is set for 2029, the agency said in a statement. The ships will support NATO missions in the Baltic and North seas, the Atlantic and the High North, according to the announcement.

Berlin selected the MEKO design after withdrawing from its contract with Damen Naval for six F126 frigates, which had initially been intended to supply the Navy’s future anti-submarine warfare capability. The ministry attributed its withdrawal to “considerable performance problems” by Damen, saying it had completed a broader assessment before terminating the arrangement.

The program change has already triggered a costly dispute. Damen is seeking €4.7 billion ($5.3 billion) in damages from the German government, arguing that Berlin’s termination was politically motivated and legally unfounded, Der Spiegel reported last week. The F126 effort had already cost Germany more than €2 billion without delivering a ship, according to public broadcaster ARD.

The initial four-ship MEKO purchase carried a reported €6.3 billion price tag, while the four-ship option was valued at €5.3 billion. Reuters reported that the second tranche, including project support and reserves, would cost roughly €5.6 billion; the projected operating costs for those four vessels through 2045 amount to another €1.55 billion.

The Defense Ministry argued that selecting one ship type should simplify training, maintenance and logistics. It also said variants of the MEKO A-200 are already in service with allied navies.

TKMS described the envisioned eight-ship production run as the company’s largest-ever surface vessel contract.

“With the four frigates already on order, the program has entered the implementation phase,” the shipbuilder said in a statement.

As part of its post-2022 buildup, the German military has put a heavy emphasis on anti-submarine warfare abilities in the Baltic, North Sea and, especially since the crisis over Greenland, in the Arctic. The F-126 was meant to be an integral part of this strategy. Other, more successful, procurements aimed at combating submarines include the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime-surveillance aircraft, the first of which landed in Germany almost exactly a year ago.

Speaking Oct. 1 at the Bergen military training area during the army’s “Experimentalserie Land” trials, Pistorius said ground forces will begin forming the regiment in 2027. Officials credited direct operational exchanges with Ukrainian frontline units for shaping the live-fire trials, which tested both aerial drones and unmanned ground systems. Pistorius emphasized that ground robotics will serve as an equal operational pillar alongside aerial systems, with the regiment consolidating reconnaissance, deep-strike capabilities, unmanned ground vehicles, electronic warfare, and counter-drone defenses under a unified command.

The regiment will serve as a divisional asset assigned to the 10th Panzer Division − the formation earmarked as Germany’s high-readiness “Division 2025” pledge to NATO, which also oversees Panzerbrigade 45 in Lithuania.

German Army Chief Lt. Gen. Christian Freuding said the Bundeswehr is pursuing a dual-track strategy that envisions setting aside dedication formations while also institutionalizing drone usage throughout the entire force.. At the turn of the year, the service will simultaneously begin fielding tactical unmanned systems directly across three core combat branches: light infantry, reconnaissance, and armor units.

The army plans to recruit between 300 and 350 personnel for the regiment’s initial footprint in 2027 before expanding the unit to an end strength of up to 600 troops, according to Freuding. In remarks to German wire service dpa, Freuding said planners target full operational capability by 2029.

The envisioned structure comprises five or six companies, including units for close-range combat, deep strikes at ranges of up to 500 kilometers depending on commercial equipment availability, electronic warfare, counter-UAS protection, and an internal trials company intended to fast-track operational testing. The Bundeswehr also plans to equip the formation with loitering munitions, which are currently undergoing evaluation and should reach troops in 2027, according to dpa information.

Unmanned systems have fundamentally reshaped modern combat, accounting for the vast majority of casualties on the battlefield in Ukraine. Western militaries have often lagged in retrofitting their forces, slowed by peacetime procurement practices and protracted political debates over weaponized drones and autonomy.

Key procurement questions surrounding the new unmanned-tech formation remain. The defense ministry has yet to finalize a permanent basing location or award contracts for the specific long-range platforms the regiment requires.

The documents about the factory in question, Azov Optical-Mechanical Plant (AOMZ) in Russia’s western Rostov Oblast, cover April 2023 to March 2025 and include internal correspondence, state contract records and cooperation schedules. They also include letters from the Tactical Missiles Corporation (KTRV), the state holding company that owns the plant. Among the documents is an apparent supply schedule of more than 70 line items, naming 44 component suppliers.

The documents, Dallas Analytics said, place AOMZ in the production chains of “at least seven” missile programs, including the Kh-101 cruise missile, the R-37M air-to-air missile and the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile. An additional document provided to Defense News by Dallas Analytics lists a line item identified as components for an air-to-air missile with the additional comment “export China 192 pieces.”

Records put the value of components slated for production there in 2025 at 583.6 million rubles ($6.9 million), of which 497.6 million ($5.9 million) had been paid in advance.

Ukraine’s Security Service said it hit the plant, in the southwestern Russian city of Azov, overnight on Sept. 26 with Neptune cruise missiles and drones. Rostov Governor Yuri Slyusar acknowledged a drone attack on Azov that damaged “industrial facilities” and residential buildings. Russian officials have not named AOMZ as a target or confirmed damage to it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a plant in the region making missile components was hit.

Dallas Analytics said AOMZ builds the Kh-101 cruise missile’s “Otblesk” navigation lidar and its flight automation block, and it claimed there is no alternative supplier for either. It noted that Russia has fired the Kh-101 en masse at Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure.

A set of additional documents reviewed by Defense News appears to show the plant’s production schedule for 2026, providing a glimpse of the components in the pipeline for the remainder of the year. Among them are 36 sets of electrical and power units destined for what Dallas Analytics identified as the R-37 air-to-air missile, as well as 41 units of item “65СНЛЭ,” meant for what the intelligence firm said is an export version of the Kh-38 air-to-surface missile. A further 50 such items were on the production docket for November and December, slated to power a domestic version of that weapon.

The firm also said the supply schedule lists TRV-Engineering, KTRV’s procurement arm, as a supplier of microcircuits for the Kh-101’s navigation set. A previous investigation identified TRV-Engineering as a channel for importing foreign microelectronics.

The Kh-101 has been used regularly to strike Ukraine. A variant with a nuclear warhead, called the Kh-102, also exists.

A KTRV letter dated Mar. 4, 2025, and marked “URGENT!!!” said the Russian Aerospace Forces wanted more deliveries from 2026, Dallas Analytics said. The document lists 500 each of several electronic blocks as well as 1,000 R-37M missile housings a year. AOMZ was given 72 hours to respond to the government on whether they could deliver the new quotas.

The United States government placed sanctions on the plant in April 2022. The European Union, Britain, Japan, Ukraine and other countries have followed suit.

Dallas Analytics pointed to the use of intermediaries and front companies for the procurement of components globally, allowing plants like AOMZ to operate despite international sanctions.

Analysis of thousands of flight records as well as gigabytes of leaked internal company documents, aviation filings and emails suggest a link between the sanctioned aircraft and more than 100 missions flown on behalf of the UAE government and its royal family since mid-2025.

The Russian company behind these planes, Aviacon Zitotrans, has been sanctioned by the United States, Canada and Ukraine for its support in Russia’s war effort. Previous reporting also revealed its role in sustaining Moscow’s mercenaries in Africa. The specific planes that pop up in the flight logs of UAE’s operations have been separately designated as blocked property by the U.S. government.

This article is the second in a multi-part series that uncovers the peculiar network of front companies, airlines and Soviet-era freight planes.

The UAE’s apparent use of a military-linked Russian cargo airline, alongside its role as a hub for Russian sanctions circumvention, runs contrary to Western efforts to isolate Moscow internationally and cut the Kremlin off from cash flows it needs to maintain its war against Ukraine.

Flight tracks collected by Defense News show that Aviacon Zitotrans’s Soviet-era Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft flew missions linking the UAE to destinations in Africa, following the same routes and operational patterns as those used by other operators that have been tied to the UAE’s support for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s civil war. Several flights operated out of UAE military bases rather than civilian airports, implying a government connection.

Defense News reached out to the UAE embassies in Vienna and Washington, to the Abu Dhabi Media Office and the UAE’s foreign ministry for comment on the Aviacon Zitotrans links, but received no response. The airline itself also did not respond to a request for comment.

Other flights flown by Aviacon Zitotrans aircraft and identified by Defense News appear to have flown from the UAE to a private airstrip in eastern Pakistan known as Chandana Airstrip or Al Habieb Airport, which previous reporting has tied to the royal Al Nahyan ruling house of Abu Dhabi. The airstrip does not appear in online ICAO/IATA code databases or Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority lists. International reporting has identified it as a gateway to the Gulf royal family’s falconry hunting grounds in Pakistan.

Sparse videos and images exist on the internet of the airfield. Defense News reviewed footage showing large portraits of Gulf monarchs and Pakistani politicians next to the apron and framed in a plush airport waiting room, along with plenty of UAE flags flying alongside Pakistani ones. UAE personnel are flown in ahead of the royals’ use of the airstrip, according to a private plane tracker’s 2022 investigation.

Delivering weapons

When not operating on behalf of the UAE, Aviacon Zitotrans flies missions for the Russian government, including the shipment of weapons around the world. Leaked internal documents viewed by Defense News show that the airline has delivered combat helicopters to Southeast Asia, armored personnel vehicles to Turkey, and received a special exemption from the Russian government to fly missiles and their warheads.

The company lists “government and military airlifts” as one of its areas of operations on its website, touting that the Il-76 planes it uses are “capable of operating from short and unpaved runways” and “achieved an excellent reputation for its versatility and operational reliability.”

The cabin and rear ramp “provides smooth loading/unloading for many kinds of rolling stock, such as armored personnel carriers (APCs), utility trucks, trailers etc,” the company’s website explains.

“Aviacon Zitotrans specializes in using Il-76 aircraft, which are very helpful, very sturdy aircraft for transporting cargo and transporting people,” said Margaux Garcia, senior analyst with C4ADS, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization specializing in analyzing illicit networks. “They were originally built to be military transport aircraft, so it makes sense that they’re being used for that purpose.”

The company’s Russia-linked operations in Africa have previously attracted attention and prompted the U.S. government to sanction the airline. Sub-Saharan Africa was the main theatre of operations for the infamous Wagner Group, which has been rebranded as Africa Corps following the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

While most Western countries have cut trade with Russia and its state-affiliated entities to a minimum, and the European Union has banned all Russian aircraft from its airspace, the UAE government maintains friendly commercial and diplomatic relations. As a consequence, the country has turned into a hub for Russian sanctions circumvention and foreign procurement, a trend confirmed by the leaked Aviacon Zitotrans air waybills Defense News examined, which routinely showed the procurement of Western goods, including sanctioned electronics, through the Gulf monarchy.

Previous reporting by Reuters has also identified Dubai’s gold markets as a crucial lifeline for Russia, given its exclusion from global payment systems such as SWIFT.

At least three Aviacon Zitotrans-affiliated aircraft have flown routes that match known patterns of UAE government-sponsored missions since September 2025: RA-76842, RA-76502, RA-76846. Another aircraft, RA-76834, flew a mission connecting the UAE’s Sweihan Air Base to Bosaso, Somalia, a known Emirati logistics hub used for weapons shipments into Africa before Somali authorities canceled the relevant agreements with the UAE in January 2026.

“It perfectly makes sense within their business model that they would work for any kind of group that would be willing to fund them. It’s a similar type of work to the work that they seem to do for Russia. So it makes sense that they would expand into this other market,” said Garcia.

All three aircraft flying the vast majority of apparent UAE-chartered missions are explicitly listed by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control as directly blocked property. Any other Aviacon Zitotrans airframes, including all that may have touched UAE territory on their Russian missions, are blocked by extension due to their connection to the company.

Most flights generally followed the same pattern: The aircraft would first depart a UAE airfield, usually the joint civil-military airport at Al Ain, Abu Dhabi airport, or, more rarely, a military base in the UAE. It would then fly south and west to the Gulf of Aden, where its transponder track would disappear. It would then reappear at the same location over the Gulf of Aden, flying back to the UAE later that day or a few days later.

Transponder conundrum

“If you notice that all of these planes that are run by the same airline all drop off of coverage, then that’s a notable pattern — especially if it happens that most other airplanes are able to travel through that area without dropping coverage,” said Garcia, whom Defense News showed its findings and data. “So it’s not a signal issue. It’s not a coverage issue. That suggests perhaps they are intentionally turning off their transponders; they’re hiding their activity.”

In total, Defense News identified well over 100 Aviacon Zitotrans sorties that had telltale characteristics of UAE government-linked cargo operations.

Defense News used a commercial aircraft tracking archive including ADS-B transponder and MLAT location data to follow the aircraft in question, building an extensive database of almost 9,000 flights conducted by a number of shadow airlines globally since early 2025. Each flight was manually reviewed. The data is often spotty due to deliberate obfuscation techniques or limited coverage, requiring pattern-matching and secondary sourcing through local reporting, ground photography and satellite imagery.

A handful of transponder tracks gave a more complete picture, filling in some of the blanks. A recurring destination was Ethiopia, particularly the Harar Meda Air Base, the Ethiopian military’s main air force facility, and Addis Ababa International Airport.

The Ethiopian embassies in Washington and Berlin did not return a request for comment.

The UAE and Russia are both deeply embroiled in the Sudanese civil war, but their governments support opposing sides. While Abu Dhabi supports the Rapid Support Forces, Russia has thrown its weight behind the government and its Sudanese Armed Forces. Aviacon Zitotrans’s apparent work for both the UAE and Russia has led to the situation that the same aircraft may be supplying opposing sides of the brutal civil war, sometimes flying from Russia and Turkey into Port Sudan, the SAF’s main supply point, and sometimes operating on UAE missions likely supporting the RSF through the African hinterland.

Aside from Africa, a handful of flights that took place during these aircraft’s apparent use by the UAE connected the Emirates to other Gulf countries, including Kuwait and Qatar.

Beyond the use of Aviacon Zitotrans aircraft, the UAE operates a fleet of cargo aircraft using front companies and ostensibly civilian charter cargo aircraft on similar missions, which Defense News will explore in a forthcoming investigation.

It’s unclear why UAE leaders picked Aviacon Zitotrans from the extensive market of cargo charter airlines. “It may be that they have seen Aviacon Zitotrans’s experience in this area, that they’ve worked in the same kind of high-sensitivity operations,” said Garcia.

The aircraft were also tracked flying other missions in equatorial and sub-Saharan Africa, including in Libya, Uganda, D.R. Congo and Nigeria, over the past year and a half. However, based on known patterns, many of these missions are likely to have been Russia-linked rather than on behalf of the UAE, even though the UAE was sometimes used as a stopover location or hub on the way.

Defense News has previously reported on an Aviacon Zitotrans Il-76 aircraft flying a secretive mission to Venezuela during mounting U.S. pressure on the country in October 2025. It was later revealed that the aircraft had delivered a Russian air defense system to Caracas. Intermediary refuelling stops are essential for these aircraft to cover such distances, as the range of the Ilyushin planes would otherwise be insufficient, the CEO of a different Russian shadow airline told Defense News as part of an earlier investigation.

“If this is the case that Aviacon is also running missions for the UAE alongside illicit missions for Russia, then it is significant because it shows that the UAE does not see the sanctions against Aviacon as a sufficient deterrent to stop working with them,” Garcia concluded.

The finding comes after a six-week investigation by the Estonian Internal Security Service. In a press statement, the government said it could say “with full confidence that the arson attack on the building of defence industry company Milrem … was an act of sabotage commissioned by the special services of the Russian Federation.”

A fire was spotted by residents in a Lasnamäe neighborhood building used by Milrem in the night of Aug. 14-15, and was quickly contained, Estonian media reported at the time. Two Latvian citizens were detained in Latvia on Aug. 17 and a third the next day. They were subsequently handed over to Estonia. Authorities in Tallinn had been investigating the case as suspected sabotage from the start.

Milrem makes the THeMIS unmanned ground vehicle. Over 150 of these robots are to be sent to Ukraine soon, funded by the Dutch government. An initial fifteen were already supporting Ukrainian forces by October 2025. The Estonian company bills itself as the “world leader in the autonomous unmanned ground vehicles domain” on its website. The United Arab Emirates’ state-owned EDGE group has held a majority stake since 2023.

The arson in Tallinn came just ten days after an explosive-laden drone struck a Ukrainian cargo plane, failing to detonate, and a second drone collided with a Boeing 757 in the air at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany, a set of incidents that German authorities have since also connected to Russia. The events are part of an escalating pattern of Russian sabotage and sub-threshold hostile actions against Western countries, particularly those with outsized support for Ukraine, European officials have said.

In response to the finding that Russia was behind the arson attack on Milrem, one of the darlings of Estonia’s budding defense industry, Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna said the government was summoning Russia’s Chargé d’affaires.

Prime Minister Kristen Michal called it “absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible” that Russia was resorting to sabotage to intimidate Europe and force it to reduce its support for Ukraine. Estonia would be doing the opposite, said Tsahkna, the foreign minister.

“Together with our allies and partners in Europe and beyond, we will increase pressure on Russia, tighten sanctions, and seek additional ways to restrict the travel of Russian citizens to Europe. We will also continue and strengthen our comprehensive support for Ukraine,” said Tsahkna. All three suspects apprehended in relation to the Milrem fire are reportedly Latvian nationals.

A similar case of arson near the Rohde & Schwarz and Helsing offices in Munich, Germany, on Sept. 3 led to the arrest of two Bulgarian nationals. German press agency dts has reported that authorities suspect Russia’s military-intelligence service GRU to be behind the arson.

“Estonian security authorities are closely monitoring Russia’s activities and cooperate closely with both Estonian companies and international partners to prevent such incidents,” said Margo Palloson, the head of the ISS, Estonia’s interior intelligence agency. “Estonia is a safe country and our goal is to ensure that it remains so.”

Defense companies and organizations working in support of Ukraine would continue to face “elevated threat,” and Russia will continue to “recruit and influence people in Europe, including for the purpose of carrying out acts of sabotage,” Palloson said.

In response to the Estonian attribution, Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov told reporters that “we cannot and will not take such statements seriously.” The accusations were “baseless” and with “absolutely no relation to reality,” Peskov said.