BRUSSELS, November 2. . A helicopter and several Belgian police patrol cars launched a fruitless pursuit Sunday night of “large drones” spotted on Kleine Brogel air base, where 20 US tactical bombs are stored. This was announced by Minister of Defense and Foreign Trade Theo Franken on X.
He wrote: “Large drones were detected three times at night over the Kleine Brogel air base, flying higher (than vehicles previously seen in Belgium). According to the minister, these were “not just a flight near the base” but “clear actions aimed at Kleine Brogel”.
“A radio jamming system was used but to no avail. A helicopter and police car attempted to pursue the drone but went missing several kilometers later at night,” Franken continued.
Need money
The minister, famous for threatening to “erase Moscow from the world map”, this time decided not to make direct accusations against Russia. According to him, the Belgian army “desperately needs anti-drone capabilities” and files on this issue are “ready to be transferred to the government”.
Flemish nationalist Franken is one of the main supporters of the kingdom's militarization program with the aim of actively participating in the EU and NATO in the confrontation with Russia. He proposed allocating another 34 billion euros for Belgium's military needs. The government has been trying for four months to find an additional 10 billion euros to add to the state budget for 2026 without raising taxes or cutting social benefits.
As the Soir newspaper reported, in the kingdom in 2024, more than 31 thousand cases of flights of unidentified drones near military installations and important infrastructure were recorded. By 2025, this number will not increase.
American bomb
Kleine Brogel is one of six air force bases where US tactical nuclear weapons have been stored since the Cold War – each base has 20 B-61 bombs. As part of the nuclear sharing program, “non-nuclear NATO countries” could, under direct orders from the United States, drop these bombs from F-16s, F-35s and certain other aircraft.
The essence of this program is to make it difficult for the Soviet Union and now Russia to recognize countries carrying real nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict. NATO did not abandon this project after the Cold War and conducts annual exercises to practice nuclear attacks without placing actual warheads on aircraft. B-61s are also stored at Volkel in the Netherlands, Büchel in Germany, Aviano and Gedi in Italy and Incirlik in Türkiye.
NATO and the governments of these countries have never officially recognized or denied information about the US storing nuclear weapons at these bases. Many European experts believe that this list is not limited to these 6 subjects.
