COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Denmark reported to NATO allies that unspecified "state actors" were responsible for drone incursions that shut two airports, Latvia's foreign minister told Reuters on Thursday, but Danish officials said it was still unclear who was behind the incidents.
The incursions forced Aalborg airport, used for commercial and military flights, to shut for three hours, while Billund airport, Denmark's second-largest, was closed for an hour, police said. Both reopened on Thursday morning.
"The Danish government said it's a state activity that operates it," Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze said in an interview on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
But Danish Defence Intelligence Service chief Thomas Ahrenkiel said at a Thursday evening news conference it was still unclear who was behind the incidents and declined to say if a state actor was suspected.
However, Finn Borch, head of Denmark's national security and intelligence service, told reporters at the news conference that Russian covert activity poses a security threat.
"The risk of Russian espionage is high. The same goes for the risk of Russian sabotage. We have seen that elsewhere in Europe, and it applies here at home as well," Borch said.
Russia's embassy in Copenhagen on Thursday rejected as "absurd" speculation that Moscow was involved in the Danish incursions.
Denmark's defence minister earlier said the overnight drone sorties were hybrid attacks, combining military and covert tactics, and were aimed at spreading fear.
The incident on Thursday, the second this week in Denmark alone, is part of what some European officials see as a pattern of Russian disruption that has exposed the vulnerability of European airspace at a time of high tensions between Moscow and NATO.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen linked the drone incident that shut Copenhagen airport late on Monday to suspected Russian drone activities across Europe, without providing evidence.
DRONES SEEN FLYING OVER THE NORTH SEA
The Latvian minister said Denmark's allies were waiting for further analysis from Copenhagen. But the incursions have demonstrated "we all have to invest in counter-drone capability," she said.
In Thursday's incursions in Denmark, drones were also seen near Esbjerg and Sonderborg airports, as well as Skrydstrup airbase, home to Denmark's F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, and over a military facility in Holstebro, police confirmed. They are all located in the western Jutland region.
Civil rescue company Esvagt told Reuters its vessels had observed late on Wednesday what appeared to be drones flying over the North Sea. Local police received a report about drones near North Sea oil fields, state broadcaster DR reported.
"This shows at least that we do not have the capacity at present to prevent the intrusion of drones over our airports," said Peter Viggo Jakobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College. "This is a hole in our preparedness."
Danish police said they had increased their presence at the affected airports and other critical infrastructure.
The incursions come after Denmark this year boosted its military budget to address acute shortcomings. Last week, it announced plans to acquire long-range precision weapons, while its decision to host Ukrainian missile fuel production near the Skrydstrup airbase has drawn criticism from Russia.
SORTIES SEEM 'SYSTEMATIC', SAYS DEFENCE MINISTER
Poland shot down suspected Russian drones in its airspace on September 10. Danish authorities said on Thursday they decided not to take down any of the drones in their airspace for safety reasons, despite the disruption caused to air traffic.
"It certainly does not look like a coincidence. It looks systematic. This is what I would define as a hybrid attack," Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told a press conference.
Denmark has not yet decided whether to invoke NATO's Article 4, which allows members to request consultations over any security concerns, Poulsen added. Poland invoked the article after downing the drones, as did Estonia after Russian military jets violated its airspace for 12 minutes on September 19.
Danish opposition lawmaker Pelle Dragsted of the Red-Green Alliance said on X that the government showed "no control over the most basic thing: Defence of our own vulnerable infrastructure."
Danish analyst Jakobsen agreed with suspicions that Moscow was behind the drone incursions. He said Russia excelled at "going right to the edge of what would trigger a military response from NATO, but not over it."
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Stine Jacobsen, Louise Breusch Rasmussen, Maria Laguna, Søren Sirich Jeppesen, Anna Ringstrom and Terje Solsvik; Additional reporting by John Irish and Gwladys Fouche; Writing by Anne Kauranen; Editing by Gareth Jones and Cynthia Osterman)
