Denmark links airport interruption to wider hybrid attacks

DAN

Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that the drone’s activity seemed to be “disturbed and disrupted”, although authorities avoided calling suspects.

The observations of two or three major aircraft near Copenhagen Airport late Monday stopped all take -off and landing for almost four hours. Authorities in Norway also closed the airspace at Oslo Airport for three hours after their appearance.

The finishes at the busiest airports in the Scandinavian area left tens of thousands of passengers.

Denmark does not exclude anything

“What we saw last night is the most serious attack on the Danish critical infrastructure to date,” Frederiksen said in a statement sent to the media on Tuesday.

“Obviously we do not exclude any choice over who is behind it and it is clear that this fits the developments we recently observed with other drone attacks, airspace violations and hacker attacks at European airports,” he said.

In comments on the public broadcaster DR, Frederiksen has recently suspected Russian invasions in Polish and Romanian airspace, as well as Estonia, which said the Russian fighters had entered its airspace on Friday.

“I certainly can’t deny in any way that it is Russia,” he said.

Danish police refused to comment on a position on X by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, without providing evidence that Russia was behind the breach of Copenhagen’s airspace.

Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, rejected such suspicions. “The incident in the sky above Copenhagen Airport reveals a clear desire to cause NATO countries in a direct military confrontation with Russia,” he said in a statement sent to Reuters.

Western security services have said in recent years that hybrid threats, especially from Russia, have become increasingly aggressive. Such threats include the natural sabotage of critical infrastructure, misinformation campaigns, suspicion of espionage and cyberattacks.

Moscow has consistently denied responsibility for any hybrid attack in Europe.

Aircraft came from different directions and then disappeared

Danish police said the aircraft in Denmark came from different directions, activating and turning off their lights before they disappeared after several hours.

Chief Inspector Jens Jespersen told reporters on Tuesday that authorities were investigating several cases, including the possibility that the aircraft were starting by ships.

Denmark’s main airport is located near a busy mission strip where boats enter and leave the Baltic Sea. A Danish Royal Navy patrolled the waters next to Copenhagen for several hours on Tuesday morning, according to Marinetraffic.com.

“He is an actor who has the potential, the will and the tools they need to highlight in this way,” Jespersen said. It was too early to say whether the incidents in Denmark and Norway were linked, he added.

Norwegian Security Police, PST, told Reuters that the situation was “still unclear” and that it was “in a routine contact with the actors both national and internationally”.