Denmark has contacted NATO and the European Union after several coordinated drone incursions disrupted operations at airports, shutting down Aalborg airport on Thursday. Officials suspect Russian involvement in what officials are calling a “hybrid attack” on critical infrastructure.
Troels Lund Poulsen, deputy prime minister and defence minister, confirmed there were drones above the airports in Aalborg, Esbjerg, Sonderborg, and Skrydstrup. Aalborg was shut down for three hours until the drones left the airspace. Poulsen approved the security forces to shoot down drones posing a threat to air traffic. “We are going to find the people who are behind this,” he said, and added, “and we don’t have enough ground-based air defence to deal with that.”
These confirmed sights followed drones disrupting operations earlier in the week at the airports in Copenhagen and Oslo and led to heightened concerns of coordinated malicious interference. In response to the incursion in Aalborg, Mette Denmark’s prime minister Frederiksen, stated it was “the most serious incident to date regarding an attack on Denmark’s infrastructure.”
European leaders expressed concern over a pattern of Russian provocations. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen noted that the Copenhagen incident fit into a “persistent contestation at our borders.” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that the alliance “is not naive” and pledged to use all necessary tools to protect member states.
The drone attacks come amid a wider surge in Russian airspace violations. Estonia and Poland recently invoked NATO’s Article 4 over similar incidents, while Romania also reported Russian drones crossing its airspace. Moscow has denied responsibility.
