Even as their invasion of Ukraine continues, Russian forces are increasingly testing European defenses with drones, manned aircraft, and warships. These are not merely mistakes or simple reconnaissance operations—they’re an attempt to normalize intrusion. And behind each probe sits a retooled and increasingly efficient military-industrial machine: shipyards churning out ice-capable submarines, missile factories running three shifts to stockpile long-range strike weapons, and explosives plants expanding to strategic scale.
A closer look at Moscow’s military procurement decisions highlights why Europe must prepare for a campaign of sustained Russian pressure well beyond Ukraine. Within Russia’s naval and missile sectors, which matter most for the European theater, three alarming trends are visible: rapid growth in production facilities, clear prioritization of strategic platforms, and investments aimed at long-term operational endurance rather than a short wartime surge.
Unless NATO shifts from reactive responses to a forward-leaning, credible form of deterrence—enforced red lines, offensive reach, and sustained support for Ukraine’s drone innovation—Moscow will continue dictating the terms of confrontation long past the current phase of its war against Kyiv.
Russia’s Black Sea fleet has been badly mauled by Ukraine’s maritime drones and long-range strikes. Furthermore, it cannot easily replace those losses, thanks to the choke point in the Bosporus. Turkey, a NATO ally, has closed the straits to belligerent warships since 2022 under the terms of the Montreux Convention—a state of affairs virtually guaranteed to last until the end of the war.
If Russia were indeed focused exclusively on Ukraine, one might expect to see it deprioritize naval shipbuilding and focus on land systems and aircraft production instead. But instead, despite sanctions and chronic inefficiency, Russia’s shipyards have pivoted decisively toward platforms that threaten Europe directly. Ice-capable fleets, nuclear service vessels, and diesel-electric submarines now dominate order books. These platforms are designed to carry cruise missiles and electronic warfare systems into NATO’s most vulnerable maritime corridors. They are also, crucially, not systems designed to compete with the U.S. Navy in the open ocean, but closer to home—principally the waters around Northern Europe.
In 2023, Baltic Shipyard, a flagship outpost of the Russian naval industry in St. Petersburg, posted a roughly $264 million loss. In the course of just one year, however, that swung to a $41 million profit. the shipyard received a flurry of state naval contracts. Those orders include nuclear maintenance vessels intended for operations in the Arctic, where NATO hosts exercises and some of Europe’s key undersea cables converge.
Steel consumption jumped by 98 percent at Baltic Shipyard in one year, and by 93 percent at Vyborg Shipyard since 2022, showing how far Moscow will subsidize naval recovery. Parallel to that, St. Petersburg authorities and the United Shipbuilding Corporation (which operates under the management of the majority state-owned VT Bank) have advanced a plan to consolidate five city shipyards into a single cluster, with $2.6 billion earmarked for modernization. The goal is simple: make Russia’s naval industry faster, harder to disrupt, and more capable of mobilizing at scale.
The output is already visible. Admiralty Shipyards has continued serial production of nonnuclear submarines, including the Project 636.3 Yakutsk, launched for the Pacific Fleet in October 2024, and the Lada-class (Project 677) Kronstadt, which entered service in early 2024 after a redesign. These relatively small, conventionally powered submarines are significantly less capable than their larger nuclear-powered counterparts in open oceans. In the constrained waters of the North Sea, Baltic, or Mediterranean, however, they are formidable.
Russia’s emphasis on equipping its small combatants—both submarines and surface ships—with long-range cruise missiles compounds Europe’s existing air defense gaps. It gives Russian commanders the ability to threaten deadly long-range strikes into European heartlands from numerous angles, a tactic honed by years of multivector attacks on Ukrainian cities and critical civilian infrastructure.
Russia’s missile production has also surged since 2023. This signals more than an effort to replenish invading forces and conduct terror operations against Ukraine. According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia is producing 115-130 long-range systems per month. This is a pace that, if sustained, builds stockpiles well beyond immediate war needs.
The Kalibr cruise missiles, Kh-101/102 air-launched weapons, and Iskander ballistic missiles rolling off those production lines can all put European capitals and NATO bases at risk. Given that Russian forces have tended to use a relatively small number of cruise and ballistic missiles in their regular strikes against Ukraine, favoring huge numbers of cheap Shahed-type drones instead, that rate strongly suggests stockpiling for operations beyond the current war.
Equipment upgrades and increased hiring at the Votinks Machine-Building Plant, the producer of Iskander missiles and other intercontinental ballistic missile components, underscore this. Media investigations document thousands of new machines and thousands of additional workers who have been brought on since 2022, with open hiring continuing into 2025.
Meanwhile, Russia is building a new facility at the Biysk Oleum Plant to produce up to 6,000 metric tons of high explosives per year. Munitions manufacturer Sverdlova Plant received billions in state investment to boost TNT production, which is critical for missile warheads. MKB Novator, part of Almaz-Antey, shifted to 24/7 production of Kalibr and Iskander missiles early in the war. And Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant is ramping up serial production of the RS-28 Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile, with infrastructure overhauls reported in 2024.
These weapons will enable Moscow to increase pressure on NATO. The Russian Navy operates ships armed with the Kalibr missiles within striking distance of European capitals in both the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean. Russia’s long-range strategic bombers—many of which have been converted to carry the long-range cruise missiles described above—make periodic flights over and near the Barents and Norwegian Seas. These flights treat NATO’s northern approaches as training grounds, normalizing Russia’s military presence in the region in the same manner as naval patrols.
Russia’s bombers and munitions are also increasingly forward-deployed—as at the newly refurbished Severomorsk-2 airfield on the Kola Peninsula—to enable deep strikes against European targets, rather than being held back in a protective, reactive posture.
Russia’s industrial capacity expansions reveal a strategy designed to make pressure on Europe cheap and keep sustained confrontation operationally feasible. Moreover, it creates the ability to hold targets across the continent at risk from multiple angles at once, compounding strategic dilemmas for European defense.
Across naval and missile domains, Moscow is testing NATO’s unity and pushing the limits of the alliance’s response. Limited responses such as scrambles, airspace closures, and statements without consequences encourage repetition at larger scale. Instead, NATO and the EU must define and enforce red lines, pair air defense with credible strike options, and sustain Ukraine’s innovation edge.
Red lines must become operational rules, not press statements. NATO should publicly define automatic responses to intrusions: drones intercepted by default, naval assets denied access to certain zones, and sanctions targeting enablers within 48 hours. Violations should trigger predictable, automatic costs. The alliance has started to signal that its posture is changing, which is a step in the right direction—but only a first step.
Deterrence also requires pairing defense with offensive reach. A “drone wall” of sensors, electronic warfare systems, and point defenses is necessary but insufficient, as is better integrated air and missile defense across the continent. Effective deterrence requires the ability to strike back. European capitals should openly discuss long-range strike options—whether in the form of cruise missiles, armed drones, or cyber capabilities—that raise the cost of sabotage and intrusion. Credible offense changes Moscow’s calculus.
Finally, Europe must sustain Ukraine’s drone innovation, which now functions as its forward defense lab. Ukraine’s drone ecosystem of mass production, rapid adaptation, and battlefield testing is developing capabilities that Europe will need. Funding that innovation isn’t charity; it’s ensuring that when pressure shifts to NATO territory, Europe has tools and tactics ready.
Russia’s naval and missile buildup has been informed by its invasion of Ukraine, but the risk extends further. It is already shaping Europe’s security environment. Russia’s industrial investments are building a coercive toolkit that explicitly targets European territory. If Europe continues to avoid articulating its own red lines, then Moscow will keep writing the script.