Copenhagen and Oslo airports remained closed to traffic for several hours between Monday night and dawn on Tuesday (23) due to the presence of several mysterious drones nearby.
Kastrup airport in the Danish capital suspended its operations between 8:30 pm Monday and 00h30 on Tuesday (3:30 pm and 19:30 yesterday from GMT), which has so far caused about 100 flight cancellations, while another 31 were diverted to nearby aerodromes.
Gardermoen airport, in Oslo, was closed between 00h30 and 03:30 on Tuesday at local time (7:30 pm and 10:30 pm Brasilia).
The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen classified the incident as a “severe attack” on the Nordic country’s infrastructure.
“The police estimate that this is a trained actor and is closely collaborating with intelligence services, the army and international partners in the ongoing investigation,” Frederiksen said in a statement sent to the news agency Ritzau.
In turn, Copenhagen Police Director Anne Tønnes and the Chief of Operations of the Police Intelligence Service (PET), Flemming Drejer, qualified at a news conference as “very critical” and “very serious”, respectively.
“I would call a hybrid incident. It is not necessary to perform an attack that provokes a boom, just disturb our air traffic and make us feel insecure,” Drejer said.
In a previous interview, Jens Jespersen, an inspector of the police of the Danish capital, was asked about a possible Russian participation and replied, “I can’t say anything about it, I just don’t know at the moment.”
“We do not exclude any options for those behind. And it is clear that this is signed up for the evolution we have observed in recent times with other drone attacks, airspace violations and cyber attacks on European airports,” Frederiksen said.
Danish and Norwegian intelligence services are contributing to the investigation, but nothing indicates until there is a connection between the two incidents.
Danish police reported that these are several large -size drones from various directions, who flew following a standard on the airport and does not seem to cause their goal to cause damage or danger situations.
In Gardermoen’s case, the suspension of air traffic forced to cancel a dozen flights.
Two foreign citizens had been detained hours earlier for flying drones in the Oslo Center, although it has not yet been determined if there is any relationship with the episode in Gardermoen.
This month, three other NATO member countries were the target of violations in their airspace and held Russia for the episodes. The military alliance even mobilized to overthrow foreign equipment that invaded these territories of its members.
Russia denies involvement in the episodes with drones
Kremlin denied on Tuesday any relationship made by Denmark authorities that Russia could be linked to the incident with various drones that forced the closure for several hours of Copenhagen and Oslo airports.
“Periodically making unfounded accusations, it is frankly speaking that the new statements are not taken seriously,” Kremlin Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at his daily press conference, when asked about Copenhagen’s reaction to the incident.
The Kremlin representative stressed that “a country that assumes a serious position should not make unfounded accusations.”
