Drone ‘Targets’ Russian Embassy In NATO Country, Kremlin Says

The Kremlin and Russian state media sources have alleged a drone ‘targeted’ the Russian Embassy in the Swedish capital of Stockholm on Sunday.

However, the drone didn’t appear to be military in nature, and it dropped a container of paint near the main entrance, in what seems to be an extreme and provocative form of protest by an unknown entity. Some sources say multiple glass containers of paint were dropped during the ‘attack’.

Still, RT states that “the drone operators used a glass vessel which could have caused serious injuries had it struck anyone.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Sunday said that “Tomorrow, Stockholm will receive a note of protest. Sweden must tame its ultras, take control of the situation, and strictly observe the Vienna Convention,” as cited in TASS.

Moscow has complained of similar incidents at the embassy in the recent pasts, and has lodged several notes of protest with the Swedish government, pointing out that the host country has an obligation to investigate as well as protect.

The full foreign ministry statemen on this fresh incident reads as follows:

“On May 25, at about 03:40 in the morning, the Russian Embassy in Sweden was subjected to another attack using a drone,” the embassy explained. — Flying over the territory of the diplomatic mission, the drone dropped a container of paint on the platform in front of the main entrance. A special cynicism to the incident is given by the fact that the drone operators used a glass container, which, when dropped from a height, can cause serious injury to people.”

The Kremlin has said of this and the several security incidents before, that when it notifies Swedish police and security services “there are no results.”

Since the Ukraine war began, there have been tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions and consulate shutters between Russia and several European states. For example, EU nations – most especially Poland - have accused Moscow of “intimidation, the instrumentalization of migrants, sabotage, disinformation, foreign information manipulation and interference.” Moscow has in return charged Western capitals with similar dirty tactics.

Meanwhile, apart from this relatively minor paint incident, Sweden is actually developing new drone swarm technology, as the newest member of NATO…

Sweden will test new drone swarm technology developed by defence equipment group Saab in upcoming Arctic Strike 25 exercises.

New revolutional drone-technology & software allows drone swarms work independently without human operators. pic.twitter.com/fUwDpi3DBy

— Tomi (@TallbarFIN) January 14, 2025

But Moscow has alleged a conspiracy against it and its diplomatic facilities abroad, which have even at times come under fire bomb attacks, or other dangerous acts of vandalism, in protest of the war in Ukraine. More significantly, there have been apparent sabotage operations targeting industrial and military sites in both Russia and the West.