Drone near Bundeswehr base Sanitz (east of Rostock)

In late September 2025, suspicious drones were reported over a Bundeswehr (German armed forces) installation at Sanitz, a municipality east of Rostock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. According to German media reports, the Sanitz sighting occurred on a Thursday, around 25 September, and was followed a day later, on Friday 26 September, by a reported drone over the Marinekommando (German Navy Command) in Rostock. Days later, several large drones were said to have moved in a coordinated and connected manner over the Überseehafen (overseas port) of Rostock, reportedly flying parallel paths in a way that suggested an attempt to survey ground facilities.

Flying drones within 100 metres of military sites is prohibited in Germany and can trigger criminal proceedings. When approached, the Bundespolizei (Federal Police), the interior ministry in Schwerin and the Bundeswehr declined to comment on the specific cases. Authorities placed the sightings in a wider context: in the first half of 2025, police in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern registered 68 incidents involving unmanned aerial systems, four of which were reportable under federal rules, one over an offshore wind farm and three over military installations. The Sanitz incident formed part of a broader wave of near-simultaneous drone sightings in the Rostock area and across northern Germany during this period.

The operator and intent behind the Sanitz drone remain unknown and under investigation; German authorities had not publicly attributed it as of the reporting. The clustering of sightings over a military base, a naval command and a strategic port within days, combined with the described coordinated flight patterns, is consistent with deliberate reconnaissance rather than recreational use, though this is unconfirmed. The episode fits a broader pattern of unexplained drone activity over German and northern European critical infrastructure since 2022, which officials and commentators have linked, in hedged terms, to possible state-sponsored intelligence-gathering. No verified evidence presented here identifies a responsible party.