A Russian frigate fired two flares at a Danish military helicopter over international waters off Denmark on Monday, with one passing dangerously close to the aircraft in what officials described as another sign of Moscow’s increasingly aggressive conduct.
Tensions across the Baltic Sea have risen sharply since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The region has seen a series of incidents involving damaged gas pipelines, airspace breaches and suspected drone activity, heightening concern in Moscow’s confrontation with the West.
The Danish defence command said the helicopter was carrying out a routine surveillance flight to photograph the Russian warship when the incident occurred.
One of the flares, pyrotechnic devices commonly used as maritime warning signals, flew close to the helicopter, according to the defence command.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described the episode as serious, though not unexpected. She said it reflected a broader pattern of increasingly assertive Russian hybrid warfare aimed at Europe and at testing Nato’s resolve.
‘Russia’s reckless action toward the Danish military during a routine overflight yesterday was intended to intimidate and divide us. It will not work. We will not waver,’ Frederiksen said in a statement on X.
‘Russia wants to spread fear and discord. Our response is to stand even closer together and reinforce the defence of Denmark and Europe,’ she added.
File photo of a Danish Air Force EH101 Merlin helicopter
Lithuanian troops secure the site after Italian fighter jets assigned to Nato’s Baltic Air Policing Mission shot down a drone
Hybrid attacks are generally understood as hostile actions that remain below the threshold of open warfare.
Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen called the flare incident ‘unacceptable’ and warned that it could have put lives at risk.
‘Denmark is working to ensure all shipping can move safely through Danish waters, but Russia is steadily shifting the boundaries of what it regards as acceptable behaviour,’ Rasmussen said in a statement.
Rasmussen added that he had called in Russia’s ambassador to Denmark for talks.
The Danish straits form the principal maritime passage linking the Baltic Sea with the wider oceans, carrying both commercial and military traffic.
The waterways are also vital to global oil shipments, including cargoes transported by Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of tankers used to evade Western sanctions.
Denmark’s Defence Intelligence Service said last year that Russian warships had repeatedly sailed on collision courses with Danish vessels, targeted Danish helicopters and ships with tracking radars, and pointed weapons at them in the straits.
Russia has dismissed accusations over such incidents and repeatedly denied carrying out hybrid attacks in Europe.
It comes as just after midnight on Tuesday, Nato fighter jets scrambled to shoot down a drone that breached Lithuanian airspace after an urgent phone warning was issued to residents.
The drone entered the country from neighbouring Belarus and was heading west before it was shot down near the central-southern village of Pratkunai outside the city of Kaunas.
An emergency warning was sent to phones in Vilnius, Trakai and Elektrėnai.
The drone was shot down by Nato forces around 30 minutes after the warning was sent. It is the first drone to be shot down in Lithuanian territory.
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda wrote on X in the early hours of Tuesday: ‘A drone that just entered Lithuanian airspace was destroyed by Nato fighter jets. I thank Allied personnel for their swift response.
‘With Russia intensifying its aggression against Ukraine, such readiness is vital for our region. Together with our Nato Allies, Lithuania will defend its airspace.’
The town where the drone was shot down – Pratkunai – is more than 30 miles from the border with Belarus.
Lithuania shares a large part of its southern and eastern border with Belarus, a major Russian ally run by Putin-puppet Alexander Lukashenko.
Lithuania’s armed forces and Italian pilots serving in the Nato Air Defence Mission ‘showed a swift and responsible response’ to the drone incursion, Lithuania’s Ministry of Defence said.
A phone displays the alert message sent to the public, warning about a possible drone attack in Vilnius on September 15
A Nato fighter jet shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace today (stock image)
Drone sightings were reported in Lithuania on Sunday, with the crisis management centre later saying an object had ‘likely’ entered from Belarus and travelled across the country’s territory before entering the airspace of Russia.
It comes after Boris Johnson narrowly escaped a Russian drone that hit a train shortly after he had passed through.
The former prime minister was aboard a private train that was forced to speed up to reach Poland on Sunday morning after an incoming drone hundreds of kilometres away was detected.
Ever since the outbreak of Russia’s war on Ukraine, military drone incursions have become increasingly common across Europe.
On Monday night, Poland also announced there had been ‘aviation operations’ in its airspace ‘due to the activity of Russian Federation’s jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicles conducting strikes on Ukrainian territory’.
These measures are of a ‘preventive nature’ and are geared towards ‘securing airspace and its protection, especially in areas adjacent to threatened regions’, it added.
Nato jets have scrambled several times to shoot down stray Ukrainian drones that have entered into Baltic countries Estonia and Latvia this year.
Kyiv has blamed the stray drones on Moscow’s electronic warfare, technology designed to change the flight paths of Ukrainian drones.
