Ukraine’s President Zelensky has claimed that Russia was behind Monday night’s dramatic closure of Copenhagen and Oslo airports. Both travel hubs were forced to ground all flights for several hours after drones were spotted in their airspace.
Copenhagen airport, the busiest in the Nordic region, was closed for four hours, while Oslo airport shut down operations for three hours. Zelensky appeared to be in no doubt as to the culprits behind the incidents, pointing the finger squarely at Moscow. In a social media post following his meeting with IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, he wrote: “We devoted special attention to Russia’s violations of the airspace of NATO member states, including on September 22 in Copenhagen.
“We exchanged views on the reasons. If there is no resolute response from the allies – both states and institutions – to aggressive provocations, Russia will continue them.”
In an interview with national media, Denmark’s Prime Minister said the incident had posed a major security threat to the country.
Mette Frederiksen told the TV2 channel that the disruption was “the most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure to date.”
She added she was “not ruling out any options in relation to who is behind this. It is clear that this fits in with the developments we have seen recently with other drone attacks, airspace violations, and hacker attacks on European airports.”
TV2 reported that the drones may have been launched from ships off the coast of Denmark and had identified three suspicious vessels.
The first is the sanctioned Russian cargo ship Astrol 1, which sailed through the Øresund on Monday afternoon after slow sailing and irregular manoeuvres in the Kattegat between Sunday and Monday.
The second ship is the tanker Pushpa, which sails under the Benin flag but has been sanctioned for transporting Russian oil.
The vessel was around 80 kilometres from Copenhagen Airport when the drone incursion began at 8.30pm local time.
The final ship under suspicion is the Norwegian cargo ship Oslo Carrier 3, which was about 7 kilometres from the airport at the time of the incident.
The ship is believed to have a number of Russian crew members and its owner Bulkship Management AS is said to have an office in Kaliningrad – a Russian enclave bordering the Baltic Sea.
