Sweden sends anti-drone systems, radars to Denmark to support summit security

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By Louise Rasmussen

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Sweden is sending radars and military anti-drone systems to Denmark ahead of European summits in Copenhagen this week, after drone incursions that forced Denmark to shut several airports, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Monday.

Denmark is due to host EU leaders on Wednesday, followed by a summit on Thursday of the wider, 47-member European Political Community, and has already said it has increased security around the events after the drone sightings.

The drones disrupted air traffic at six Danish airports last week, including at Copenhagen, the Nordic region’s busiest, in what Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called a hybrid attack on her nation.

Kristersson said in a post on social media X that Sweden would send “Counter-UAS” – Unmanned Aircraft Systems – and that his country separately on Sunday had also shipped “a handful” of radar systems to Denmark.

On Sunday, Denmark ordered a ban on civilian drone flights, after drones were observed at several military facilities overnight.

The NATO military alliance on Saturday said it was upgrading its mission in the Baltic Sea in response to the situation in Denmark, and a German air defence frigate arrived in Copenhagen on Sunday to assist with airspace surveillance.

Denmark has stopped short of saying definitively who it believes is responsible, but Frederiksen has suggested it could be Moscow, calling Russia the primary “country that poses a threat to European security”.

The Kremlin denies involvement in the drone sorties.

(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen and Soren Jeppesen , editing by Terje Solsvik and Gareth Jones)