Denmark does not rule out Russian involvement in drone ‘attack’

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Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she did “not rule out” Russian involvement in what she described as the “most serious attack to date” after drones of unknown origin prompted the closure of the largest airport in the Nordic region.

The drones flew over Copenhagen airport on Monday, halting its operations for several hours. Nato and the EU on Tuesday blamed Russia’s “irresponsible” behaviour in similar recent incidents with drones and fighter jets breaching their airspace.

“I can’t rule out that it is Russia,” Frederiksen said Tuesday.

“What we saw last night is the most serious attack to date on critical Danish infrastructure,” she said. “It is clear that this fits in with the developments we have seen recently with other drone attacks, violations of airspace and cyber attacks on European airports.”

Oslo airport in Norway was also shut for a few hours on Tuesday after unidentified drones were spotted. The Norwegian prime minister separately disclosed that Russian jets had breached his country’s airspace on three occasions this year.

Flemming Drejer, head of the Danish intelligence and security service, also refused to rule out Russian involvement and called the situation “extremely serious”. “We in Denmark face a high threat of sabotage,” he said, adding that one possible scenario was that the drones were launched from a nearby ship.

Danish police earlier said they had seen several large drones — most likely piloted by a “capable actor” — flying over Copenhagen airport, the busiest in the Nordic region.

Authorities did not shoot down the drones because of their proximity to local houses and passenger aircraft filled with fuel, police added on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that he had spoken about “Russia’s violations of the airspace of Nato member states, including on September 22 in Copenhagen”, during a meeting with the head of the IMF in New York.

Vladimir Barbin, the Russian ambassador to Denmark, said that the “suspicions against Russia are unfounded”. He added: “The incident at Copenhagen airport reveals a clear desire to provoke Nato countries into a direct military confrontation with Russia.”

Europe remains on high alert after several Russian incursions into Nato airspace in recent days, including multiple drones in Poland, a single one in Romania and three MiG-31 fighters flying over Estonian territory for 12 minutes on Friday.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Tuesday said that Russian planes had flown into his country’s airspace for several minutes in April, July and August. He said it was unclear whether the incursions were deliberate or due to mistakes in navigation, but called them “unacceptable”.

Both Poland and Estonia invoked Article 4 of the Nato treaty to start formal discussions with allies, and calls are growing from frontline states for clearer rules of engagement to shoot down any Russian aircraft that enter the alliance’s airspace.

Nato said on Tuesday that the Russian fighter jets that breached allied airspace in Estonia last week were “part of a wider pattern of increasingly irresponsible Russian behaviour”.

“Russia bears full responsibility for these actions, which are escalatory, risk miscalculation and endanger lives. They must stop,” the alliance said, adding that it had dispatched more fighter jets and air defences to bolster its eastern flank.

It warned Moscow that Nato would deploy “all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves and deter all threats from all directions” and that its commitment to the mutual defence clause was “ironclad”.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio on Tuesday promised “to defend every inch of Nato territory. That commitment remains firm,” he told CBS.

Asked if the US would be willing to shoot down Russian jets if they crossed into Nato airspace again, Rubio said: “I don’t think anyone said about shooting down Russian jets unless they’re attacking.”

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she had spoken with the Danish premier about the drone incident and that “while the facts are still being established, it is clear we are witnessing a pattern of persistent contestation at our borders”.

“Our critical infrastructure is at risk. And Europe will respond to this threat with strength [and] determination,” she added.

Von der Leyen has called for the creation of a “drone wall” on the EU’s eastern flank to protect its airspace from Russian incursion. Defence ministers, including Denmark’s, will discuss the idea at a meeting on Friday. 

Many Nato countries have expensive fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles, but possess few of the cheaper systems that Ukraine has pioneered to combat Russian drones.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia took a “very responsible position” and that its aircraft did not violate international regulations. 

Additional reporting by Laura Dubois and Henry Foy in Brussels, Steff Chávez in Washington and Courtney Weaver in Berlin