In a review released on Friday, FE said that there is no threat of a military attack against Denmark.
The assessment was made public at a briefing in Copenhagen involving the head of FE, Thomas Ahrenkiel, and Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen.
“Russia wants us to believe that there’s a threat of war hangning over us. They want us to live with that fear,” Ahrenkiel said.
“Our assessment remains that Russia would not conduct a regular military attack,” he said.
Although it does not consider Denmark to be at risk of a military attack, FE considers the threat of sabotage against the Danish military to be high.
“It is our assessment that Russia is currently conducting a hybrid war against Denmark and the West. They want to stop us from making decisions that are against their interests,” Ahrenkiel said.
“A very clear picture is apparent. That is, Russia is conducting a hybrid war. This is an escalation of our previous threat assessment,” he said.
A number of incidents play into the assessment, including reckless sailing and jamming of civilian and military communications and satellite navigation on both ships and aircraft, Ahrenkiel said.
In addition to this, a series of violations of Nato airspace by Russia are considered part of a hybrid threat.
Denmark has seen repeated drone flights over its airports and other infrastructure in recent weeks, though a link to Russia has not been proven.
Neither Ahrenkiel nor Poulsen gave detail on investigations into the drone incidents.
“We can not yet definitively state what it is,” the FE chief said.
Poulsen said Denmark’s situation required “further rearming” and “togetherness” in Denmark as well as Nato.
In a written statement to news wire Ritzau, the Russian Embassy in Copenhagen dismissed the FE report as “politically motivated.”
“[Its] purpose is to justify the irresponsible statements made by Danish politicians about preparing for a direct military confrontation with Russia, their need to undermine a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, and their accusations that our country is waging a ‘hybrid war,’ the embassy wrote.
“Russia has never had aggressive plans against Denmark and still has no such intentions,” it continued.
Comments