Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen (L) and Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard (R) told a news conference in Copenhagen that recent disruption to air travel caused by drones flying in and around airports, including several incidents on Wednesday night, bore all the hallmarks of a hybrid attack. Photo by Emil Helms/EPA
Authorities in Denmark said Thursday that a slew of incidents involving unidentified drones in the Scandinavian country’s airspace in recent days that have shuttered airports were “hybrid attacks,” but stressed they did not believe Russia was behind them.
Following fresh sightings Wednesday over the Skrydstrup air base and the closure of Aalborg Airport for the second time in three days, as well as over the southern cities of Esbjerg and Sonderborg, Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulson told a news briefing that the pattern of attacks pointed to a “professional actor.”
He said the systematic nature of the operation made it what he defined as “a hybrid attack using different types of drones,” but that the location they had been launched from was somewhere local.
Poulson said that while there was no evidence of any direct link to Russia, Denmark was not without options with response avenues via NATO, including invoking Article 4 under which any member country can formally put matters in front of the alliance’s North Atlantic Council.
The drone incursions were across a five-hour period starting around 9:45 p.m. local time Wednesday when green lights appeared over Aalberg Airport, 185 miles northwest of Copenhagen, forcing it to close, followed by other sightings at other airports, with the all clear being given just before 3 a.m.
Police were searching for those responsible for Wednesday’s incidents, all of which occurred in the country’s Jutland region, which is part of mainland Europe, as opposed to Copenhagen, which is on Zealand island in The Sound.
Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said he believed the aim was to intimidate.
“The goal of this kind of hybrid attack is to create fear. It is to create discord and it is to make us afraid,” he said.
Hummelgaard vowed that the government would tackle the threat by purchasing new and better equipment to detect drones and changing the law to empower infrastructure operators to shoot them down.
Copenhagen Airport and Oslo Airport, Scandinavia’s largest and second-largest airports, were both forced to close on Monday due to drone activity in their airspace. Copenhagen reopened early Tuesday but warned passengers to expect knock-on “delays and some cancelled departures.”
Norwegian police said they had arrested two foreign nationals on suspicion of “flying drones within the [Oslo Gardermoen Airport’s] restricted zone.
