Half a dozen European airports have been shuttered this week over the appearance of mystery drones, with the Danish government calling it a “hybrid attack” — the usual signal implying Moscow involvement — while also acknowledging they have no evidence Russia is involved.
Four airports — two of them with military airbases which include the home of Denmark’s whole inventory of F-16 fighters — were shut down for hours at a time on Wednesday night by the simultaneous appearance of mystery drones in their airspace, representatives of the Danish government said in a press conference on Thursday morning. It is the second time European airports have been “attacked” in this way this way this week, with major airports in Denmark and Norway also shut down by drone sightings on Monday.
The Danish government is coming under heavy criticism from opposition parties given Wednesday night’s incident came so soon after the last, and yet the country was still not in a position to adequately track, intercept, or shoot down the drones when they arrived. The Ministry of Defence has said they could have shot down the drones that approached its military bases if it wanted to, but they made the determination that it would be safer for civilians not to suddenly start engaging in anti-air warfare in built up areas.
Nevertheless the national police chief in his comments on Thursday morning underlined just how little the government knows about what happened and why. Top cop Thorkild Fogde said there was no “smoking gun” at the scene that revealed the perpetrator, but said the fact that drones appeared simultaneously at military and civilian facilities betrayed a “pattern” pointing to a “hybrid” warfare style “attack”.
The officer said: “We are not yet able to identify who is behind this, we are also not able to say exactly where the drones came from and whether they were launched in or outside Denmark, and we are also not able to say exactly where they disappeared to.”
Denmark’s Justice Minister also called it a hybrid attack, a phrase generally used in Europe exclusively in relation to the Russian Federation and its campaign of sub-military, but acknowledged that with no evidence whatsoever to hand, they were keeping all options open for the investigation. They said: “The goal of these kinds of hybrid attacks is to create fear, create division and make us afraid”.
The nation’s defence minister also used that language, and said it had the hallmarks of being a professional and “systemic” operation. He said the incidents in recent days are not simply the world of a member of the public flying a toy-store drone. Russia, for what it is worth, has denied involvement.
The Norwegian government had some more luck this week. Following Oslo Airport being shut by a drone on Monday, they were able to capture it and arrested the owner — “a man in his 50s”, per Norwegian state media — for questioning.
It is not yet known whether the drone events in Denmark at Copenhagen, Aalborg, Esbjerg, Sønderborg and Skrydstrupand airports, and in Norway’s Oslo airport are related.
In face of sharp criticism from the Danish opposition, the government says it will bring forward new legislation to make bringing down drones worrying airports in future easier. A spokesman for the hard-left Red-Green Alliance party claimed the incidents proved the government was not in control of the situation.
Their man said: “It is deeply worrying that the government — despite billions allocated for armaments — does not have control over protecting our very basic critical infrastructure. So foreign drones can shut down our airports and create danger in air traffic for two days in a row.
“The preparedness and protection of our own country, our citizens and our infrastructure should be the absolute first priority. It does not seem like it is right now. We have now called the government into consultation on the matter”.
Denmark says they have contacted NATO over the flights and are considering triggering Article 4, the lines in the alliance’s founding treaty that obliges all members to convene a meeting to discuss an emerging security threat.
The drone appearances are not the only hybrid-warfare-like “attacks” on European airports of late. A man was arrested by British police on Tuesday over a massive cyber attack that disrupted many of Europe’s busiest airports last week by disabling their passenger check-in systems. Whether this was an attack with a profit or political motive has not yet been made clear.
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