Russian Warship Fires Flares at Danish Helicopter in Baltic — SkimNews
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- Danish armed forces said an air force Fennec helicopter was fired upon with two emergency flares by a Russian frigate in international waters off Gedser, with one flare passing close to the aircraft during what they called a routine photographic operation.
- Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen branded the Russian action "reckless" and designed to "intimidate and divide," as Denmark summoned Russian ambassador Vladimir Barbin and Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen accused Moscow of "gradually shifting the boundary for what they consider acceptable behaviour."
- Russian ambassador Vladimir Barbin pledged a "thorough investigation" but accused Danish helicopters of "provocative actions" and "dangerous manoeuvres," claiming Moscow had complained about a similar incident last year and blaming "communication problems" on the Danish side.
- NATO fighter pilots shot down a drone over Lithuania overnight after it likely entered near Kaunas from neighbouring Belarus shortly after midnight, prompting Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda to cite "increased Russian aggression in recent months."
- Poland announced it conducted "aviation operations" Monday night due to Russian jet-powered drones striking Ukrainian territory, describing the operations as "preventive" and aimed at securing airspace near threatened regions.
- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Russia's behaviour "reckless and dangerous" and tied the flare incident and Lithuania drone to "a broader pattern of Russian aggression and provocation against Europe."
- Ukraine has blamed stray drones crossing into NATO Baltic members Estonia and Latvia this year on Russian electronic warfare disrupting flight paths — an angle the dominant flare-incident framing tends to overlook in favor of the direct provocation narrative.
Why it matters: Denmark summoned Moscow's ambassador over the flare incident on the same day NATO jets downed a drone over Lithuania and Poland scrambled to intercept near its Ukrainian border, producing three separate airspace confrontations along the alliance's eastern flank in roughly 24 hours. For NATO, the compounding incidents force reactive scrambles and raise miscalculation risk in a region already saturated with drones from the Ukraine war.
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