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How to read the map

Each incident is a circle filled with the colour of its status: orange, reported; red, confirmed. Purple, not substantiated: an official authority closed its investigation without evidence of the drone or withdrew its statement without saying it was something else; the incident and its effect stay on the map, with their history. Filled grey, ruled out: an official authority says it was not a drone; the incident stays too. A denied incident is a grey circle with a dashed outline and no fill. An attributed incident (a confirmed one that an authority attributes to a State or to a person) is a slightly larger circle with a thick red ring and, inside, the flag of the country it is attributed to; when attributed to a person, it also has a fixed dark dot in the centre. It is always drawn on top and is never grouped with the circles. The type of incident is written in the record, the list and the filters.

The observatory records what is reported and what authorities state. “Confirmed” means an official authority has stated it, not that public physical evidence exists.

Hollow ring with a dot in the centre: approximate location. The source only names the country, the region or the sea, and the marker is at the centre of that area, not at the site of the event. Its colour is that of its status.

The “Filters” button opens the period (everything, the last 24 hours, the last 7 or 30 days, the last year or between two dates) and the status, type and country filters. With a period chosen, the button shows it and its cross goes back to everything. The map, the list, the figures, “Live” and every layer show that period. “Last 24 hours” counts back from this moment: it includes what started in the previous 24 hours and, when only the day is known, what happened today and yesterday.

“Europe now” opens the figures of the moment; each one leads to the place on the map that explains it. On the button, an orange number counts the airport closures in progress and a white one the updates since your previous visit: inside, “Show me” goes through them one by one and “Dismiss” clears them.

Each incident covers an area: the circle is the radius within which it is known to have happened.

A thin line joins the incidents of one episode: several targets on the same night.

A circle with a number inside groups several incidents (a single incident is filled and has no number): it grows with the number, and its ring is red if it holds any confirmed incident, purple if there is none and one is not substantiated, and orange if all are reported. An outer purple ring means one of its incidents has the drone's presence not substantiated; a grey one, that one has it ruled out. Zoom in and they separate. Map names give way to the circles: they are shown whole or not at all.

If the incidents share the exact same spot, tap the circle to choose which one to open.

Only what is new since your last visit pulses (and the circle that holds it): it stops when you press “Show me” or “Dismiss” or open the incident. With the system's reduced motion setting, it gets a fixed ring instead. Reported and not substantiated incidents are dimmer.

A soft glow marks what started in the last 24 hours.

Nothing pulses on a first visit: there is no earlier visit to compare with yet.

In the Ukraine layer, each region is shaded violet by the attacks that name it in the period: the colour of the whole war layer, distinct from the red and orange of incidents.

Russian regions are muted violet with a dashed outline: their figures are those of the Russian Ministry of Defence, a claim by a party to the war.

A small violet dot is a specific place hit (a town or a facility; if the source only names the community or the district, that one, with its radius) according to the regional administrations, the Ukrainian General Staff or Russian governors. Filled: official source; ring only: claim by a party. Zoomed out, they group with their count. Daily front-line reports are in the downloadable data.

A light dot next to an incident, a place hit or a group of places, or at the centre of a Ukrainian region, marks a thermal hotspot detected by satellite (NASA FIRMS) at its place and time: white on incidents and light violet in the war layer.

A tag with the ICAO code inside and a point towards the airport is an alert from the live detection, without pulse. Its border shows the status: orange, possible closure in progress; red, closure confirmed; grey, operations resumed. It sits above the spot so it never hides the number of a group.

Alerts: Instant alerts on your phone or computer about confirmed drone incidents in Europe, airport closures and incursions into NATO countries. Free, no sign-up.

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Authorship

Author: Lucas Alaniz Pintos, PhD · ORCID 0009-0008-5179-2534 · Contact: lucasalanizpintos@gmail.com

Recommended citation

Alaniz Pintos, L. (2026). European Observatory of Drone Incidents. Version 2026-10. https://droneobservatory.eu. Licence CC BY 4.0.