One night last week, Henrik Abildgaard, a Danish photographer, stepped out on his porch to have a smoke. He lives in Vestbjerg, a little town in northern Denmark near a military base.
While he was enjoying his cigarette, he said, he saw “something whizzing across the sky and flashing red and green.” A half-hour later, he spotted another one.
What he was witnessing, he soon realized after comparing the video he shot with footage broadcast on TV, was one of the mysterious drone flights that have rattled Denmark in the past 10 days. Several large drones have appeared over military bases and some of Denmark’s biggest airports, including Copenhagen’s, only then to vanish into the night sky.
Analysts suspect, and authorities have implied, that Russia is behind the overflights, as part of a strategy to probe Europe’s preparedness, sow division and unsettle the public.
The last part, at least, seems to be working. Leaders from the 27-nation European Union met on Wednesday in Copenhagen amid greater security than usual to discuss defense and the war in Ukraine. The public anxiety in Denmark over the drone incursions shows how the zone of concern over Russia is steadily growing and how a conflict that once felt far away all of a sudden can feel close.
“We’ve seen a crazy increase in sales,” said Valdemar Badsted, a salesperson at Wolf Tactical, a military surplus shop in Copenhagen. “People are getting worried about war.”
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The post A Run on Canned Mackerel and Emergency Radios. The Reason? Drones. appeared first on New York Times.
