Is Russia testing NATO with aerial incursions in Europe? | Aviation News | USAEMALL.com

Denmark was forced to close its northern Aalborg airport on Wednesday when unidentified drones were detected in its airspace. This follows Monday’s sighting of drones close to Copenhagen’s airport. Drones were later detected near several other airports on Thursday as well.

While the source of these drones has not been formally confirmed, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which crossed into Polish and Romanian airspace earlier this month were identified as Russian.

Meanwhile, Estonia also claimed Russian aircraft entered its airspace.

Here is a closer look at the sightings across Europe and whether Russia might be deliberately testing NATO boundaries.

Which countries have reported airspace incursions?

Denmark

Early on Thursday, Danish authorities reported that “more than one” drone had been spotted near Aalborg airport in the Jutland region of northern Denmark.

The airport is used for both commercial and military flights, and its closure disrupted military operations, according to the police.

The Danish police said the drone sightings in Aalborg followed a similar pattern to those that halted flights at Copenhagen airport for four hours on Monday, when several large, unidentified drones were spotted near the capital’s airport.

“It is too early to say what the goal of the drones is and who is the actor behind,” the Danish police told the Reuters news agency.

The Danish armed forces said they were assisting local and national police with the investigation.

On Thursday, police said the drones had left Aalborg airspace, but additional drone sightings had been reported near airports in Esbjerg, Sonderborg and Skrydstrup in western Denmark.

“It certainly does not look like a coincidence. It looks systematic. This is what I would define as a hybrid attack,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told reporters.

Poulsen added that Denmark does not consider itself to be facing a direct military threat. He did not directly name Russia as responsible for the drones.

Poland

On September 9 and early on September 10, NATO and Polish forces scrambled to shoot down Russian drones which had entered the European nation’s airspace during a Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, which shares its northwestern border with Poland.

Poland temporarily shut down at least three of its airports, including Warsaw’s Chopin airport, the country’s largest, and advised people to stay at home while the operation continued.

“During today’s attack by the Russian Federation on targets in Ukraine, our airspace was repeatedly violated by drones,” the Polish military’s Operational Command said in a statement.

An operation was conducted to collect debris from the drones that had been shot down.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed that the drones were from Russia, saying in a televised statement: “We are dealing with a large-scale provocation … We are ready to repel such provocations. The situation is serious, and no one doubts that we must prepare for various scenarios.”

Romania

The Southeastern European country has reported debris from Russian drones falling into its territory since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.

On September 13, it sent two F-16 jets and two Eurofighters to intercept a Russian drone which had breached its airspace during a Russian attack on Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defence said. It advised citizens to take cover.

The Defence Ministry reported that the jets had chased the drone until “it disappeared from the radar” near the Romanian village of Chilia Veche, which is close to the border with Ukraine.

Estonia

Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said three Russian fighter aircraft entered its airspace on September 19.

Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said Russia had violated Estonian airspace four times in 2025, but the incursion “involving three fighter aircraft entering our airspace, is unprecedentedly brazen”.

How has NATO responded?

On September 10, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in relation to the Polish airspace incursion: “Our air defences were activated and successfully ensured the defence of NATO territory, as they are designed to do.”

Missile and defence systems from multiple NATO allies, including Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS jets, NATO’s Multi Role Tanker Transport Capability aircraft and German Patriot defence systems, were involved in the response to the drones, Rutte reported.

He said NATO had convened to discuss the situation following Poland’s request for consultations under Article 4 of the NATO Treaty, which spans 14 articles. Article 4 of the treaty allows any member country to request urgent consultations with the alliance if it feels its security or territorial integrity is threatened.

It also serves as the precursor to activating Article 5, which decrees that an armed attack on one NATO member should be considered an attack on all members of the alliance.

“Allies expressed solidarity with Poland and denounced Russia’s reckless behaviour,” Rutte said, adding that it is clear that the “violation” was “not an isolated incident”.

NATO again met on September 23 at the request of Estonia, according to a statement released by the alliance.

“Russia bears full responsibility for these actions, which are escalatory, risk miscalculation and endanger lives. They must stop,” the NATO statement said.

Is Russia ‘testing’ the West?

Ukrainian officials claim Russia’s incursions into other countries’ airspace are deliberate.

“Putin just keeps escalating, expanding his war, and testing the West,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, posted on X on September 10 after the drones were spotted in Poland.

“The Russian military knows exactly where their drones are headed and how long they can operate in the air. Their routes are always calculated,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X on September 13 after the drones entered Romanian airspace.

“It is an obvious expansion of the war by Russia – and this is exactly how they act,” he added.

Other NATO allies have also claimed the incursions were deliberate.

“There’s definitely no reason to suspect that this was a course correction, a mistake, or anything like that,” German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told lawmakers. “They wouldn’t have had to take this route to fly to Ukraine.”

However experts in drone warfare say it is still possible that the incursions were not deliberate.

“Are these drone incursions deliberate? I don’t believe they necessarily are,” Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

Drones on autopilot are programmed with specific target coordinates in their system so if they lose the GPS signal, they “do not know where to go”. “In many cases, they literally fall from the sky. They fly somewhere until they run out of fuel.”

The jamming of enemy drone GPS signals is a common tactic used by both Russia and Ukraine, Miron explained.

Russia also uses cheap “decoy” drones called Gerbera drones, which can be easily jammed, to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defence system, she added. These were the drones that were found to have been used in the Polish incursion.

How has Russia responded to the charges?

Moscow has denied deliberately attacking any of the European countries, instead accusing them of making false allegations to cause tensions.

After Russian drones entered Polish airspace, the Russian Ministry of Defence said its drones had targeted military facilities in western Ukraine and that there were no plans to strike locations in Poland.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also claimed that NATO and Ukraine “accuse Russia of provocations on a daily basis, most of the time without even trying to present at least some kind of argument”.

“The side that takes a serious, responsible position should not come up with such unfounded accusations,” he told the Russian news agency Tass on Tuesday.

The next day, Peskov again said the allegations that Russian drones had violated NATO airspace were “unfounded” and “we hear such exaggerated hysteria about our military pilots allegedly violating some rules and invading someone’s airspace”.

How has Trump responded to these reports?

United States President Donald Trump has been trying to hold negotiations to bring an end to the war in Ukraine since he assumed office in January this year. A summit he held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August failed to produce a peace agreement, however.

Earlier this month, Trump told reporters that the drones entering Polish airspace “could have been a mistake”. This earned him rebuke, and Tusk responded, saying Poland knew it was not a mistake.

He appeared to have changed his stance when asked after a meeting with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this week whether he believed NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft that enter their airspace. Trump told reporters: “Yes, I do.”

What happens next?

On Friday, defence ministers from several European countries will meet to discuss establishing a “drone wall” to protect against further incursions. Denmark will join this discussion.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also called for a drone wall earlier this month.