The Danish defense ministry said Saturday that \u201cdrones have been observed at several of Danish defense facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The\u00a0new drone sightings<\/a>\u00a0overnight Friday into Saturday come after there were several drone sightings in the Nordic country earlier this week, with some of them temporarily shutting down Danish airports.<\/p>\n Several local media outlets reported that one or more drones were seen near or above the Karup Air Base, which is Denmark\u2019s biggest military base.<\/p>\n The defense ministry refused to confirm the sighting at Karup or elsewhere and said that \u201cfor reasons of operational security and the ongoing investigation, the Defense Command Denmark does not wish to elaborate further on drone sightings.\u201d<\/p>\n The ministry clarified later to public broadcaster DR that reports of additional drone activity at Skrydstrup Air Base and the Jutland Dragoon Regiment referred to sightings that didn\u2019t occur overnight from Friday to Saturday. Its earlier statement seemed to imply that timing, and was widely reported.<\/p>\n The ministry couldn\u2019t be reached immediately for confirmation, but a statement on its website referring to the incidents at the base and barracks was dated Thursday \u2014 though it didn\u2019t directly confirm the sightings took place that day.<\/p>\n Anxiety and suspicion<\/p>\n Tensions have been running high in Denmark in recent days after various reports of drone activity, and hundreds of possible sightings reported by concerned citizens couldn\u2019t officially be confirmed. Nonetheless, the public has been asked to report all suspicious activity to police.<\/p>\n On Saturday, DR and several other local media reported that in Karup, there were drones in the air both inside and outside the fence of the air base at around 8 p.m. on Friday, quoting Simon Skelkj\u00e6r, the duty manager at the Central and West Jutland Police.<\/p>\n DR said that for a period of time, the airspace was closed to civil air traffic, but that didn\u2019t have much practical significance as there is currently no civil aviation in Karup.<\/p>\n The repeated unexplained drone activity, including over four Danish airports overnight Wednesday into Thursday and\u00a0a similar incident at Copenhagen Airport<\/a>, has raised\u00a0concerns about security in northern Europe<\/a>\u00a0amid\u00a0suspected growing Russian aggression.<\/a><\/p>\n Flights were grounded in the Danish capital for hours on Monday night.<\/p>\n The goal of the flyovers is to sow fear and division, Danish Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard said Thursday, adding that the country will seek additional ways to neutralize drones, including proposing legislation to allow infrastructure owners to shoot them down.<\/p>\n For the upcoming European Union summit next week, the Denmark\u2019s defense ministry said on X that the country\u2019s government had accepted an offer from Sweden to \u201clend Denmark a military anti-drone capability,\u201d without giving further details.<\/p>\n German reports drone sightings<\/p>\n In neighboring Germany, several drones were reported in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, which borders Denmark, from Thursday into Friday night.<\/p>\n The state\u2019s interior minister, Sabine S\u00fctterlin-Waack, said that \u201cthe state police are currently significantly stepping up their drone defense measures, also in coordination with other northern German states,\u201d German news agency dpa reported. She didn\u2019t provide further details, citing the ongoing investigations.<\/p>\n German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters on Saturday afternoon that his ministry is working on new anti-drone rules that aim to detect, intercept and \u2014 if needed \u2014 also shoot down drones.<\/p>\n On Thursday, European defense ministers agreed to\u00a0develop a \u201cdrone wall\u201d<\/a>\u00a0along their borders with Russia and Ukraine to better detect, track and intercept drones violating Europe\u2019s airspace.<\/p>\n German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that in regard to frequent attacks on infrastructure and data networks, \u201cwe are not at war, but we are no longer living in peace either.\u201d He didn\u2019t allude to a certain country as the actor behind those attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cDrone flights, espionage,\u00a0the Tiergarten murder<\/a>, massive threats to individual public figures, not only in Germany but also in many other European countries. Acts of sabotage on a daily basis. Attempts to paralyze data centers. Cyberattacks,\u201d he added during a speech at the Schwarz Ecosystem Summit in Berlin on Friday, dpa reported.<\/p>\n What became known as the \u201cTiergarten murder\u201d in Germany refers to the case of\u00a0Vadim Krasikov<\/a>, who was convicted of the Aug. 23, 2019, killing of Zelimkhan \u201cTornike\u201d Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany. Krasikov was returned to Russia as part of a\u00a0massive prisoner swap<\/a>\u00a0between the U.S. and Russia in 2024.<\/p>\n One of the six runways at Amsterdam\u2019s Schiphol Airport was closed for about 45 minutes early Saturday afternoon after reports of a drone sighting around noon (1000 GMT), military police spokesman Doron Wallin told The Associated Press. Aircraft were redirected to another runway.<\/p>\n Wallin said no drone or drone pilot was found and the runway was reopened. He said that such reported sightings are a regular occurence, with 22 so far this year.<\/p>\n NATO discusses airspace violations<\/p>\n Later on Saturday, Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the chair of NATO\u2019s Military Committee, said at a NATO meeting in Riga, Latvia, that \u201cRussian aircraft and drones, on top of the already existing measures will now find the resolute response of the newly established and already operational Eastern Sentry activity, which further strengthen NATO\u2019s ability to react quickly and decisively against this kind of reckless behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRussia bears full responsibility for these actions,\u201d Dragone said. \u201cToday, I express full and unequivocal solidarity with all allies whose airspace has been breached. The alliance\u2019s response has been robust and will only continue to strengthen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Latvian President Edgars Rink\u0113vi\u010ds said that \u201cthe immediate priority today is clearly air defense.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRussia continues a pattern of provocations, most recently recklessly violating the airspace of Poland and Estonia,\u201d Rink\u0113vi\u010ds said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Danish defense ministry said Saturday that \u201cdrones have been observed at several of Danish defense facilities.\u201d The\u00a0new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[2597,2821,332],"class_list":{"0":"post-456578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-military","9":"tag-nato","10":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115279009421535058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}