The Media Line: Northern Europe’s Drone Jitters: Airports, NATO Posture, and a Fast-Evolving Threat

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Northern Europe’s Drone Jitters: Airports, NATO Posture, and a Fast-Evolving Threat

Warsaw’s invoking of Article 4 triggered urgent consultations and a rapid NATO surge, while Denmark imposed a temporary civilian-drone ban and airports across the region managed brief shutdowns and diversions

By Giorgia Valente/The Media Line

A string of suspected Russian drone incursions has pushed Northern Europe into a new phase of vigilance—disrupting civil aviation, spurring rapid allied coordination, and reframing what “peacetime” looks like along NATO’s northern and eastern flanks. On Sept. 9–10, 2025, Poland reported Russian drones crossing its airspace and invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, triggering urgent consultations within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Days later, the alliance rolled out Operation Eastern Sentry to reinforce the eastern flank. Earlier this year, NATO had already activated Baltic Sentry to strengthen surveillance and critical-infrastructure protection across the Baltic Sea region.

Carl Peterson, cofounder and chief operating officer at DFA Systems, told The Media Line that recently there have been “confirmed violations of NATO airspace” over Poland involving a Gerbera decoy drone and the Geran-2 attack drone, adding that Warsaw’s decision to invoke Article 4 “initiates security consultations.”

Denmark, meanwhile, experienced multiple airport disruptions ahead of major meetings in Copenhagen, prompting a temporary nationwide ban on civilian drone flights. Sweden, Finland, and Germany served as safer alternatives during reroutes and delays—an evolving aviation picture captured by Dr. Shary Mitidieri, founder of N.A.M.A. Osservatorio Nazionale dell’Adriatico, Mediterraneo e Atlantico (the National Observatory of the Adriatic, Mediterranean and Atlantic). “Drone attacks in Northern Europe have led to temporary disruptions to civil flights, with rerouting especially toward domestic or safer airports in Sweden, Finland, and Germany,” she told The Media Line.

The immediate posture is increasingly collective. Eastern Sentry functions as a mobile shield—moving fighters, sensors, and ground-based defenses where risk spikes—while Baltic Sentry focuses on maritime and critical-infrastructure security. Mitidieri said the reaction “has not been solely national,” with air defenses and radar alerting reinforced “within the NATO framework,” including Baltic and Eastern Sentry.

Uncertainty still surrounds Denmark’s sightings. Peterson cautioned that “we are less certain about the recent drone sightings in Denmark,” which might involve larger military systems launched from “the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad or… Russian vessels in the Baltic Sea,” or short-range “commercial off-the-shelf drones” that would require nearby operators—implying possible Russian assets on Danish soil.

Airports are responding to suspected drone activity with temporary airspace restrictions and notices to air missions (NOTAMs), runway pauses, and other deconfliction measures—one reason flights may be briefly suspended or rerouted even without confirmed attribution. Peterson stresses the civil-aviation risk: “The greatest threat to civil aviation comes from the risky nighttime drone flights over Danish airports,” Peterson said, warning that even small “DJI Mavic”-type models can damage an airliner—particularly “if one is sucked into an aircraft engine. Drone flights that violate aviation regulations seriously increase the danger to civil aviation, especially in heavily trafficked areas like airports.”

Platforms complicate defenses. Russia’s Geran-2 is widely known as a domestically designated variant of the Iranian Shahed-136 class—large, long-range, one-way attack drones. Alongside these, decoy drones and small commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) platforms are cheap, numerous, and hard to detect. Peterson says: “The drones that we recently saw in Poland are very much the same kinds of drones that we have seen the Russians use in the conflict in Ukraine, including the Gerbera decoy drone, and Geran-2 attack drone. It is still unclear exactly the types of drones being used in the mysterious Danish airspace violations, but these could range from Russian military drones to commonly available commercial off-the-shelf drones, which we have also seen used in the War in Ukraine.”

Motive assessments range from probing to harassment. “There could be a number of possibilities as to why the Russians are doing this. It could be intelligence collection … or assessing reactions and response times for air defenses. It could also be harassment, with the Russians just seeking to cause problems for NATO countries and their citizens,” says Peterson. On the societal front, exposure and resilience are rising together. Mitidieri notes: “In Norway and Denmark, the perception of vulnerability is growing, but so is resilience: civil-preparedness initiatives, exercises, and information campaigns are multiplying to accustom the population to the possibility of prolonged crises or conflict scenarios,” adding that “Similar initiatives do not (yet) appear to have a counterpart among allied countries that are geographically more distant from the northeastern flank of the alliance.”

Legal thresholds matter. Article 4 calls for consultations when a member’s security is threatened; Article 5 is collective defense if an armed attack occurs. Poland’s move signals gravity without crossing into Article 5. In practice, near-term steps are layered: tighten air policing, push counter-uncrewed aircraft systems kits and radar, surge allied assets around sensitive events, and harden infrastructure—measures meant to reduce risk even as attribution work continues. The capability gap remains in the small-drone space. Peterson argued NATO states “are seriously lagging behind” Russia and Ukraine in small-drone use and warned that “future conflicts will likely include” mass deployment of FPV-style attack drones alongside larger systems.

Policy choices follow from that gap. Governments can move swiftly on procedures, but procurement will take longer, and civil preparedness helps bridge the timeline. Peterson offers both a warning and a path forward: “While NATO has robust traditional air defenses,” Peterson said, allies are still grappling with small-drone threats and “I don’t believe that governments or populations are prepared.” He added that with a faster innovation base “in the US and Europe, NATO can surpass” Russian systems—“but only if both governments and industry work together.”

For now, Poland’s Article 4 consultations are active; NATO has surged via Eastern Sentry (and Baltic Sentry in the region); Denmark imposed a temporary civilian-drone ban; some flights were rerouted or briefly delayed; and allied air assets have been placed on alert. Still unsettled are the exact platforms over Denmark, the launch points—Kaliningrad, Baltic vessels, or local operators—and the full operational pattern behind the incursions. As Mitidieri framed earlier, national measures now sit inside a broader allied response; as Peterson stressed, the small-drone threat is both immediate and evolving.