The Danish Prime Minister Meta Frederickson has called a drone incident over Copenhagen airport the most serious attack on the national infrastructure to date. Flights were grounded when drones flew over the airport. The premier says she cannot rule out Russian involvement.This footage obtained by Danish broadcaster TV2 shows objects flying above Copenhagen airport as it was shut down for hours over a drone alarm Monday
night. At the same time, drone sightings also forced the Norwegian capital Oslo to close its airport. Dozens of flights were diverted, disrupting thousands of passengers and Danish Prime Minister Metafixen didn't take the incident
lightly. I consider this a serious attack on critical infrastructure in Denmark. One should not underestimate the fact that drones near airports can have extremely serious consequences. Under no circumstances should those drones be there.
Airport drone attacks seem professional, says Danish minister
I certainly cannot rule out in any way that it is Russia. We've seen drones over Poland that shouldn't have been there. We've seen activity in Romania,violations of Estonian airspace. We've seen cyber attacks on European airports over the weekend. Now, there have been
drones in Denmark, and it appears there have been drones in Oslo and elsewhere in Norway as well. Danish police say hey weren't able to identify the drone operator or the number of drones. After more than 3 hours, they left the area.
Denmark reports 'hybrid attack' as drones sighted at:
I can state the factual conditions surrounding the drones. As I said,number, size, flight patterns, time over the airport. And this all indicates based on the overall assessment that this is a capable player. Which capable actor, I don't know.
Takeoffs and landings in Oslo and
Copenhagen resumed with many delays and cancellations in the early hours of Tuesday.Police say it would have been dangerous to bring down the drones due to airplanes and people on the ground as well as the buildup area around the airport.Danish and Norwegian authorities are now investigating whether the two incidents are related.
Jeppe Kofod, Danish
And we're joined now by Yep Kofford who was foreign minister of Denmark between 2019 and 2022. Today he's the CEO of the consultancy firm Kofford Global. Mr.Kofford, welcome to DW. How well in your eyes is Denmark positioned when it comes to protecting its critical
infrastructure after what we saw yesterday?
Of course there are uh different type of protection both in the airport uh in the the in the area of course and we have different um authorities uh present police military airport uh authorities and so on but I think uh and it goes probably for most of Europe we are not in my opinion uh ready for this type of hybrid warfare um because we don't have,
I think, enough um sophisticated equipment to identify and um eventually jam or take down uh drones like the ones we saw last night in Copenhagen.
I want to enter the realm of speculation with you for a second. I'm sure you have an ear to the ground there in Copenhagen. What do you believe is the most likely scenario here? What and
who could be behind these drones?
Well, of course you also heard that the police has established that is a capable actor as they call it. Um there are only few of them in the world I guess. Um and if you look at who would have interest in in this um hybrid attack uh I guess
it points very clearly on Russia although they deny any uh involvement in this uh but there I think it's quite certain that that it's a pattern we see all over Europe um in recent uh weeks also um and Russia is behind different
Drones disrupt flights at second Danish airport in week
type of um testing uh our defense systems, our resilience,uh you know, our critical infrastructure like airports or energy systems and so on. Um so I I'm absolutely um sure that it could be Russia and I would be not surprised if it was Russia. You hinted at the incidents in Estonia,
Poland and Romania there that we saw in recent days and weeks. What kinds of vulnerabilities have these and
what we saw yesterday uh in Copenhagen exposed?
Well, um of course we are um heavily investing in our military at the moment.Uh our defense systems, our air defense systems, surveillance, uh of course different type of military capabilities.
Um so that is good and needed and NATO did some very important decision uh this year on expanding our defense spending but on critical infrastructure like airports or I say energy system energy generation uh data hubs and so on I think uh we
still have a long way to go to be frank uh to be safe and protected effectively against hybrid warfare. We see hybrid
warfare every day, every second uh goes on with cyber warfare or uh different type of influence campaigns or even this physical uh hybrid warfare. And I think we uh in Europe uh needs to step up a lot um to meet that threat. And I think
Denmark Investigates Russia in Second Drone Attack
what we've seen now uh over the the last few weeks is just um an example of uh something there will be more of in the future as Russia escalates is u both its fighting in Ukraine but also its testing of NATO and Europe. Yeah, we've now heard briefly and maybe if you can,
we've uh heard the the Polish um leadership and say that uh that any any uh vehicles entering its airspace should be shot down. Um that of course means that more vehicles will enter its
airspace. What can be done to deter any nefarious actors to you know avoid these
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