Dmitry Peskov

Sept. 27 (UPI) — Denmark on Saturday reported more suspicious drones flying above its largest military base, the second time its airspace was violated this week after another group of drones grounded commercial flights days ago.

Finland, Germany and Lithuania on Saturday also reported sighting drones in their airspace, which follows reports from other NATO nations, including Estonia, Poland and Romania, that reported airspace violations.

In the latest incident, the BBC reported drones were observed above Karup airbase, forcing the nation’s military base to close airspace to commercial traffic. Drones were spotted flying over the country on Thursday near Skrydstrup air base, causing the closure of Aalborg Airport, as others were detected over the southern cities of Esbjerg and Sonderborg.

Additionally, on Saturday, Lithuania report that three drones were noticed near Vilnius, which delayed several commercial flights, Lithuanian broadcaster LRT reported, while Yle reported that a drone flew over the Valajasosky power plant in Rovaniemi, Finland.

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen has said that there is no evidence directly linking the aircraft to Russia, though there has been a significant rise in Russian violations of allied airspace, according to European leaders.

“There can be no doubt that everything points to this being the work of a professional actor when we are talking about such a systematic operation in so many locations at virtually the same time. This is what I would define as a hybrid attack using different types of drones,” Poulsen said Thursday after drones were spotted over the country.

In a separate incident, Danish authorities said a Russian warship was spotted near their waters with the tracking system off, the Danish outlet Ekstra Bladet reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the allegations “unfounded.”

The Danish Defense Ministry confirmed that drones appeared near multiple military installations but did not specify which ones, according to the BBC. Denmark’s Defense Command, which did not disclose the number of drones it detected, told the Danish news outlet DR News that it deployed resources in response to the drone incursions.

Karup airbase is home to all of the Danish Armed Forces’ helicopters, airspace surveillance and parts of the Danish Defence Command.

Earlier in the week, on Monday, Denmark’s Copenhagen Airport also halted operations because of drone sightings, as did authorities Norway’s Oslo Airport.

Overnight Wednesday, the airspace above Aalborg Airport in northern Jutland was closed — several flights were cancelled and two inbound flights were diverted for about 1 hour — after police reported a drone, Danish broadcaster TV2 said.

German media also reported drone sightings on Friday night in Schleswig-Holstein, which is near the Danish border.

The incursions over NATO members’ borders have increased in the last few weeks after Poland shot down Russian drones violating its airspace on Sept. 10, which came at the same time as a massive strike on Ukraine at the same time. This was the first time NATO had engaged Russian assets over its territory since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Romania reported a similar violation on Sept. 13 and scrambled F-16s after detecting a Russian drone.

Three Russian MiG-31 jets later entered Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland on Sept. 19, which spurred Estonian leaders to invoke Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which allows any member of the alliance to call for consultations if it feels its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” is under threat.

Sept. 1 (UPI) — Russia is suspected of interfering with the Global Positioning System of a jet carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the European Union said Monday

She was in a chartered jet Sunday headed from Poland to southern Bulgaria as part of a tour of eastern EU countries, including “front line” states of Latvia, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania and Romania bordering Russia and Belarus. She was expected to discuss defense readiness as part of the tour.

Bulgaria borders Romania and is 1,000 miles from western Russia.

Despite no functional GPS, the plane landed safely at its intended airport in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, though pilots relied on paper maps, the Financial Times reported.

Von der Leyen, accompanied by Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov, visited an arms producer in Sopot.

On Monday, she traveled to Lithuania and Romania.

“We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia,” Arianna Podesta, deputy spokesperson of the commission, said in a statement obtained by Politico.

“This incident underlines the urgency of the president’s current trip to frontline member states, where she has seen firsthand the everyday threats from Russia and its proxies.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Bulgaria’s information was “incorrect.”

Bulgaria’s government explained how the plane landed at the airport.

“Air Traffic Services immediately proposed an alternative landing approach using ground-based navigation aids [Instrument Landing System],” the Bulgarian government said in a news release. “The ground-based navigation aids used in Bulgaria are independent of GPS systems. We further clarify that there was no need to divert the flight.”

Without correct GPS information, there is a risk of colliding with other planes or unintentionally flying into the ground, water or other object.

“Threats and intimidation are a regular component of Russia’s hostile actions,” the European Commission said, adding they would “ramp up our defense capabilities and support for Ukraine.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, GPS jamming has worsened, Cyrille Rosay, a senior cybersecurity expert at the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, told the BBC.

The BBC reported no proven link has yet been established between Russia and GPS jamming.

Bulgaria, which was a satellite state in the Soviet Union with Russia until the collapse in 1989, has had a “noticeable increase” in GPS incidents, the nation’s Air Traffic Services Authority said.

In March 2024, a British air force plane carrying Defense Secretary Grant Shapps had its GPS signal jammed while flying close to Russia’s Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania. Legitimate signals are replaced with fake ones, indicating an incorrect location.

“They have gone from isolated incidents to being normalized,” Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Program, told the BBC. “No one has been willing or able” to convince Moscow to stop an expanding “campaign of interference.”

Airlines operating around the Baltic coast in the last few years in three countries — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — have reported tens of thousands of jamming incidents.

July 28 (UPI) — A cyber attack on Russia’s largest airline on Monday saw dozens of canceled flights after a pro-Ukraine team took responsibility for hacking airline computer systems.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called it “quite alarming” after at least 42 scheduled Aeroflot flights largely domestic in Russia got canceled.

Aeroflot officials gave no specific details or how long it would take to restore its mainframe after officials informed passengers of a “failure” in its tech systems advising service disruptions, but did warn travelers of delays and cancellations.

The airline said its tech teams were “actively working to minimize the impact on flight operations and restore all services to normal as quickly as possible.”

“We kindly ask passengers to monitor real-time updates on airport websites, information displays, and public announcements across the airline’s route network,” the airline said in a statement.

Aeroflot’s cyber-security attack was a direct result of Russia’s full-on invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the hacker group calling itself “Silent Crow” confirmed.

Russia’s prosecutor general’s office also confirmed that Aeroflot’s technological issues were a result of a virtual attack on its computer systems and stated that a criminal investigation is underway.

Silent Crow says it worked with a separate group based in Belarus called “Cyber Partisans BY.”

They pressed unverified claimed of access to flight history data, that it destroyed roughly 7,000 Aeroflot servers, compromised its corporate computer structure and further threatened to released “the personal data of all Russians who have ever flown Aeroflot.”

On its Telegram channel, Silent Crow wrote how for a year, “we were inside their corporate network, methodically developing access, going deep into the very core of the infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, Aeroflot partner air carries Rossiya and Probed have not reported any technological issues.

The cyber attack on Russia’s flag air carrier arrived weeks after another on Australian airline Qantas exposed the data of six million customers. That followed a similar event at the end of June on Hawaiian Airlines by a group FBI officials believe to be young adults and teens living in the United States and Britain.

“Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!” Silent Crow said in a statement.

July 4 (UPI) — One person died and 26 were injured in record Russian airstrikes throughout Ukraine‘s capital Kyiv on Friday, one day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was “disappointed” that Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t ready to end the three-year war.

Several thousand residents spent the night in shelters, including subway stations or underground parking lots during eight hours of drone and missiles strikes, CNN reported.

“Absolutely horrible and sleepless night in Kyiv,” Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said about the nonstop strikes.

After the two presidents spoke on the phone, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the “Special Military Operation,” which started in February 2022, will continue until they’ve met their objective.

Trump said that “no progress” had been made to end fighting, which began after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Trump said he planned to speak with Zelensky on Friday.

Ukraine’s air force said the the 550 drones, 72 of which penetrated air defenses, surpassed the previous record of 537 launched last Saturday night.

Air raid alerts sounded overnight in Kyiv, the “main target of the strikes,” the Ukrainian Air Force said on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was a “brutal, sleepless night” as he condemned one of the most “demonstratively significant and cynical” attacks of the war.

“Notably, the first air raid alerts in our cities and regions yesterday began to blare almost simultaneously with media reports discussing a phone call between President Trump and Putin,” Zelensky posted on X. “Yet again, Russia is showing it has no intention of ending the war and terror.”

Again, he urged international allies, including the United States, to put more pressure on Russia to end the war and to impose harsher sanctions.

“All of this is clear evidence that without truly large-scale pressure, Russia will not change its dumb, destructive behavior,” Zelensky said. “For every such strike against people and human life, they must feel appropriate sanctions and other blows to their economy, their revenues, and their infrastructure. This is the only thing that can be achieved quickly to change the situation for the better. And it depends on our partners, primarily the United States.”

Some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine have been halted by the United States.

Trump blamed former President Joe Biden for “emptying out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves.”

A German government spokesperson said his nation is in talks with the U.S. to buy Patriot air defense systems to give to Ukraine.

The commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces warned the number of long-range drones used by Russia could reach 1,000 or more daily.

The airstrikes damaged railway infrastructure, as well as schools, businesses and vehicles in the capital, including five ambulances that were summoned.

The Polish consulate also was damaged, said Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, who called on the U.S. to “restore supplies of anti-aircraft ammunition to Ukraine and impose tough new sanctions on the aggressor.”

With air pollution levels in the city “high,” according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, residents were warned to stay indoors, not to ventilate rooms and use air purifiers at maximum if possible.

“This attack happened immediately after Putin’s conversation with Trump, and it confirms that Trump is a scoundrel, just like the fact that the U.S. wants to stop aid deliveries and he is not helping in any way during his presidency,” one Kyiv resident, Yuriy, told CNN.

One body was found in the rubble in the Svyatoshynsky district, the leader of the Kyiv city military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said.

Also hit were the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Chernihiv regions.

Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said the “massive” strikes were in response to the “terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime.”

A woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a village not far from the border on Friday night, the acting governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region said.

June 9 (UPI) — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was expected to call for member nations and allies to increase defense spending in London on Monday.

Rutte is set to deliver remarks at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a British think tank also known as Chatham House, in London and meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the visit to London.

“The fact is, we need a quantum leap in our collective defense,” he is expected to say according to remarks shared with reporters.

It is anticipated that Rutte will ask NATO allies to increase their defense spending by 400%. He’s likely to lay out an outline for why it’s necessary for each to agree to up their military spending to 5% of GDP when they meet at a summit in The Hague later this month.

“The work ahead of us for the [NATO summit] in The Hague is clear,” Rutte posted to X Thursday. “We need a new defense investment plan that will ensure we have the resources we need to be able to deter and defend in this more dangerous world.”

Each will be asked to invest millions more on tanks and artillery shells as Rutte will focus on the possibility of an aggressive Russia in the future.

“The fact is, danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends,” Rutte is expected to say while adding that, that Russia won’t back down on its military even if and after when its war on Ukraine ends.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov already reportedly responded Monday to what Rutte is expected to discuss and said that NATO “is demonstrating itself as an instrument of aggression and confrontation.”

NATo already announced Friday that Rutte will ask for its allies to spend 3.5% of that 5% on core defense, with the other 1.5% to go to defense and security-related investments.

Rutte is also slated to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer while in London Monday.

May 28 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Germany Wednesday to discuss the state of German military support, which could include a delivery of powerful missiles to Ukraine for use against Russian targets.

Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation were welcomed by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz shortly after their arrival in Berlin, and Zelensky is also expected to meet with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The visit takes place as speculation continues in regard to whether Germany will supply Ukraine with its Taurus cruise missiles, which can strike targets as far away as 300 miles. Merz had signaled before his ascension to chancellor that he would overturn a previous ban by his predecessor Olaf Scholz on the provision of such weaponry to Ukraine.

Zelensky spoke with reporters Tuesday, and said he would discuss the issue of long-range missiles.

The decision to provide the Taurus missiles remains officially unresolved as it has been a matter of contention between the conservative alliance of the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union parties, and the Social Democratic Party, their coalition partners.

However, Merz announced Monday that Germany would “do everything in our power to continue supporting Ukraine,” and that “also means no longer having any range restrictions on the weapons we supply. Ukraine can now also defend itself by attacking military positions in Russia.”

Merz later explained the comment was in reference to actions taken months ago, and German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil has since confirmed that no new decision in regard to the Taurus missile issue.

Germany has previously provided Ukraine with two weapons systems capable of strikes within Russian borders, the Mars II rocket launchers and Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled artillery, and range restrictions on their usage were lifted in May 2024.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced Monday that European countries who lift restrictions on the range of provided armaments for use against Russia on Russian territory would be making a “rather dangerous decision.”

Zelensky posted to social media Tuesday that in an “extended meeting” with Ukrainian military leadership, they had discussed “preparing new agreements with our European partners in the near future, to attract investment into Ukrainian production,” which “First and foremost,” means “the production of unmanned systems and long-range capabilities,” so that the military can “operate at significant distances.”