The director of the National Security Department (NSD), General Loreto Gutiérrez Hurtado, warned this Tuesday of the worrying "normalization" of incidents linked to the presence of foreign drones at airports and in the vicinity of military bases in various European countries.
During her speech at the course 'Hybrid Strategies and Coordination within the National Security System', which is part of the Summer Courses of the Complutense University of Madrid in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the general cited episodes detected in Belgium, Denmark, Romania, Lithuania, and Poland, emphasizing that these types of incidents are multiplying.
In parallel, she pointed out the increase in interference in GPS and Galileo positioning systems, with a notable surge since 2022. As she stressed, these actions generate considerable insecurity among the population due to their "very high cost and impact" in critical areas such as air transport, where the mere sighting of a drone forces operations to be interrupted.
Regarding the attribution of these activities, she acknowledged the technical complexity of precisely identifying a specific perpetrator. "It is one thing for it to be plausible and another for it to be demonstrable and attributable," she pointed out.
Russia and the use of hybrid strategies
Even so, she alluded to international reports that point to Russia as the actor that most systematically resorts to information manipulation and foreign interference to "weaken international support for Ukraine" in the context of the invasion of that country.
For this reason, she defended the need to reinforce constant coordination against "hybrid strategies," which are acquiring increasing weight on the global stage and act as transversal tools that "blur the lines between peace and conflict," she stated.
In this framework, she highlighted the 2021 National Security Strategy, currently under review, as well as the recent launch and consolidation of a permanent coordination group aimed at articulating a comprehensive response to these threats.
To conclude, he has emphasized that security constitutes the essential support of the Welfare State and a key factor for Spain's economic activity. "Spain is a safe country (...) and that allows us to have a Welfare State and for one of our sources of income, which is tourism, to be maintained," he stated, warning that the loss of that perception of security would very seriously affect strategic sectors such as tourism.