Description: The Danish Defense Ministry announced that a second wave of drone incursions was detected on several locations across the country which prompted the closure of several airports for a few hours. The airports in Aalborg and Billund reported drone sightings and issued closure notices for several hours. Danish defense and national intelligence services reported that the level of sophistication of the incursions indicated that the attacks were either conducted or sponsored by a state actor, although there were no firmly established connections to Russia or its ally Belarus. Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen stated that she and her government were considering the invocation of NATO’s Article 4, since several critical infrastructure locations were heavily affected by the incursions.
Impact: The drone incursions situation in Denmark indicates a continuous probing of the country’s air defenses and by association of NATO’s airspace which in turn demonstrates Europe’s unpreparedness of tackling and combating threats of its critical infrastructure. The incursions could have also been used for intelligence gathering and in identifying potential critical weak points in the ground, aerial and cyberdefenses in Denmark. Nexus to Russian covert activities hasn’t been established for the time being, however, regardless of the perpetrator of the incursions, the operations demonstrate severe shortages and lack of equipment and resources in tackling these kinds of threats, which could considerably endanger critical infrastructure such as airports, military bases and energy plants.