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Denmark’s prime minister said the country had suffered the “most serious attack to date” on its critical infrastructure after its biggest airport was shut down by unknown drones in its airspace.
Mette Frederiksen said Denmark did “not rule out any options” over who piloted the drones that flew over Copenhagen airport on Monday, halting operations for several hours.
Oslo airport in Norway was also shut in a separate incident involving drones as anxiety mounted across Europe about a series of recent airspace violations by Russia, with both unmanned and manned aircraft.
“What we saw last night is the most serious attack to date on critical Danish infrastructure. It says something about the times we live in and what we as a society have to be ready to handle,” Frederiksen said on Tuesday.
“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.”
Flemming Drejer, head of the Danish intelligence and security service, called the situation “extremely serious” and said they were investigating it “massively” with co-operation with several other countries.
“We in Denmark face a high threat of sabotage,” he added, refusing to rule out Russian involvement.
Danish police earlier said they saw several large drones — most likely piloted by a “capable actor” — flying over the airport, the busiest in the Nordic region.
Authorities did not shoot the drones down because of the proximity of local houses and passenger aircraft filled with fuel, police added on Tuesday.
Oslo airport was also closed early on Tuesday due to two to three drone observations, Norwegian police said, but added that they had not verified the sightings.
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.
Europe remains on high alert after a number of 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.
Both Poland and Estonia invoked article four 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.
Frontline countries in the Nordics, Baltics and eastern Europe have been among the most enthusiastic supporters of Ukraine with military aid, and have also dramatically increased their own military spending.
Denmark is amending its laws to allow the rapid start-up of a Ukrainian factory producing fuel for rockets in the Scandinavian country, and has announced a number of high-profile weapon purchases in recent weeks, including mid- and long-range air defence.
But questions remain about the state of Nato’s air defence against drones, more than three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine brought unmanned aircraft into daily conflict.
Many Nato countries have expensive fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles but few of the cheaper systems that Ukraine has pioneered to combat Russian drones, which often cost about just $20,000 compared with $500,000 for a single western missile.
Copenhagen airport was closed for about four hours before it reopened in the early hours of Tuesday. Oslo airport was also closed for three and a half hours before reopening on Tuesday.
Norwegian officials have previously said that drone sightings in the autumn of 2022 near oil and gas installations led to a marked uptick in similar observations. Copenhagen airport has been closed due to drones previously, but not for such a long duration.
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