Large drones that flew over Copenhagen airport for hours and caused it to shut down constituted the "most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure" to date, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Tuesday.
Airports in Copenhagen and Oslo reopened early Tuesday, hours after unidentified drones in their airspace caused dozens of flights to be diverted or cancelled, disrupting thousands of passengers.
"This is part of the development we have recently observed with other drone attacks, airspace violations, and cyberattacks targeting European airports," Frederiksen said in a statement provided to AFP.
She referred to similar drone incidents in Poland and Romania and the violation by Russian fighter jets of Estonia's airspace.
The governments of Poland, Estonia and Romania have pointed the finger at Moscow.
Russia denied on Tuesday that it was connected to the drone flights. "We hear unfounded accusations from there every time. Perhaps a party that takes a serious, responsible position shouldn't make such unfounded accusations time and again," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including AFP, in a daily briefing call.
Danish intelligence said the Scandinavian country was facing a "high threat of sabotage".
"Someone may not necessarily want to attack us, but rather stress us out and see how we react," Flemming Drejer, director of operations at Denmark's intelligence service PET, told a press conference Tuesday.
Police said that they had been unable to identify the drone operator.
"The number, size, flight patterns, time over the airport. All this together ... indicates that it is a capable actor. Which capable actor, I do not know," Copenhagen police inspector Jens Jespersen told reporters.
"It was an actor that had the capacity, the will and the tools to make their presence known," he said.
He said "several large drones" flew over the Copenhagen airport for more than three hours late on Monday.
A heavy police presence was dispatched to investigate the drone activity, and the devices could be seen coming and going for several hours before flying away on their own.
Police were cooperating with the Danish military and intelligence service in their investigation, Jespersen said.
He said police decided not to shoot down the drones for safety reasons.
"You have to think very carefully before starting to try to take down such big drones."
If they were to fall to the ground, "there are planes with people, fuel, and also housing on several sides of the airport," he said.
Air traffic disruptions
Jespersen said it was not known where the drones were being controlled from, but that it could have been from many kilometres away.
The drones were flying from several directions, he said.
"It could very well be something initiated from a ship," he told Danish broadcaster DR.
The Copenhagen airport is located on the coast of the Oresund Strait, between Sweden and Denmark.
Airport officials said air traffic had resumed early Tuesday but 20,000 passengers were affected by 31 flight diversions and more than 100 cancellations.
Heavy delays and disruptions were expected throughout Tuesday as many planes were not at their planned airports.
Copenhagen police said earlier they were also cooperating with colleagues in Oslo after drone sightings in the Norwegian capital also caused the airport to close for several hours.
"We had two different drone sightings," Oslo airport spokeswoman Monica Fasting told AFP.
"We reopened the airport around 3:15 am (0115 GMT)," she said.
A total of 14 flights were diverted from Oslo airport, she said.
Norway's intelligence service PST confirmed their involvement in the investigation.
"PST is, as is customary, in contact with the relevant parties, both nationally and internationally," agency official Eirik Veum told AFP.
With AFP
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