COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Under a blanket of unprecedented air defense and international military support, European leaders converged on Copenhagen today for a high-stakes summit on security, their agenda fundamentally reshaped by the “hybrid attacks” that rocked Denmark’s airspace just days earlier.
The two-day gathering of the European Union Council, followed by the wider European Political Community (EPC) summit, has been transformed into an urgent war council, with the very nation hosting the talks reeling from a coordinated series of mysterious, unidentified drone incursions that forced the closure of multiple Danish airports and military bases last week.
The Fortress City: A NATO-Backed Shield
The security measures in place—described by officials as the most intense since the Cold War—reflect the acute alarm gripping the continent. Denmark has effectively closed its airspace to all civilian drone flights for the duration of the summits to “remove the risk that enemy drones can be confused with legal ones.”
Crucially, the host country is being actively shielded by its allies:
- Anti-Drone Systems have been rushed to Copenhagen from the United States, Germany, France, Sweden, and the UK, including sophisticated precision radar and counter-drone capabilities.
- A German air defense frigate is docked in Copenhagen, bolstering NATO’s enhanced “Baltic Sentry” mission.
- Ukraine has deployed a mission of its own specialists to share real-time combat experience in countering Russian drones, a development President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the foundation for a future “Europe’s Drone Wall.”
- Dozens of allied soldiers from Germany and France are on the ground, specifically tasked with detecting and neutralizing aerial threats.
Russia’s Shadow Over the Agenda
The drone incidents, which Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen labeled a calculated “hybrid attack,” have immediately put Russia at the center of the talks, despite Moscow’s firm denials of involvement.
“We can find that there is primarily one country that poses a threat to Europe’s security – and that’s Russia,” Frederiksen stated, setting the combative tone for the discussions.
The key focus of the two-day summit has shifted from general strategy to urgent, tangible defense projects:
- The ‘Drone Wall’: Leaders are set to finalize plans for a “drone wall”—a multi-layered, technologically advanced defense shield stretching along Europe’s eastern border to detect, track, and neutralize unmanned aerial threats.
- Preparing for War: The EU meeting is expected to address how Europe can rapidly prepare to “fend off Russian aggression by 2030,” especially amid mounting doubts over the future of U.S. commitment to NATO.
- Ukraine Support: Continued military and financial aid, including a new proposal to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort, remains a top priority.
The disruption in Denmark, which followed previous Russian drone breaches in Polish and Estonian airspace, is serving as a chilling reminder to the leaders arriving today that the “grey zone” of hybrid warfare is no longer an abstract concept—it is operating right over their heads. The conversations inside the heavily secured chambers of Christiansborg are now less about theory, and more about immediate survival.