COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A Russian warship early on Friday twice violated Danish territorial waters north of the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm the place a democracy competition attended by senior lawmakers and enterprise individuals was going down, the Danish Armed Forces mentioned.
Denmark known as the motion an unacceptable provocation.
The Russian warship entered Danish waters with out authorization at 0030 GMT on Friday and once more just a few of hours later, the armed forces mentioned in a press release. The warship left after the Danish navy established radio contact, it mentioned.
“A deeply irresponsible, gross and utterly unacceptable Russian provocation in the center of #fmdk,” Denmark’s Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod mentioned on Twitter, referring to the Democracy Festival of Denmark.
The annual competition is attended by senior authorities officers, together with Kofod and Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
“Bullying strategies don’t work towards Denmark,” Kofod mentioned.
The Russian ambassador had been summoned, he added.
There had nevertheless been no fast risk towards the competition or Bornholm, Danish defence minister Morten Bodskov instructed native media, citing the armed forces.
“We should settle for that the Baltic Sea is changing into a high-tension space,” Bodskov mentioned, including that this was not the primary time Russia had violated Danish territory.
Ukraine’s defence minister mentioned final month that Ukraine had began receiving Harpoon missiles from Denmark, deliveries that he mentioned had been the results of cooperation between a number of international locations.
On Friday, Ukraine mentioned its forces hit a Russian naval tugboat with two Harpoon missiles in the Black Sea, the primary time it has claimed to have struck a Russian vessel with Western-supplied anti-ship weapons.
The Russian embassy in Copenhagen didn’t instantly reply to a requests for remark by e-mail and cellphone.
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Stine Jacobsen and Nikolaj Skydsgaard; modifying by John Stonestreet and Angus MacSwan)
