Russian Warship Fires Flares at Danish Helicopter, Raising Baltic Tensions

In international waters of the Baltic Sea near Gedser, the Russian corvette RFS Soobrazitelny fired two emergency flares at a Danish Air Force Fennec helicopter that was conducting routine photo-coverage of the vessel. One flare passed within a short distance of the aircraft, whose door was open for photography. Danish Chief of the Air Force Maj-Gen Jan Dam warned that the pyrotechnic “could have hit someone.” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called the confrontation “completely unacceptable,” and Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Russia was “behaving increasingly aggressively” and testing NATO. Russia’s ambassador Vladimir Barbin was summoned, and he said Moscow would “thoroughly investigate” while accusing the Danish helicopter of “dangerous manoeuvres.”

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The incident occurred amid heightened activity of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a group of sanctioned oil tankers that operate under foreign flags to evade Western restrictions. The Baltic route past Denmark serves as a choke-point for tankers departing the Russian ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk. The RFS Soobrazitelny, a Steregushchiy-class corvette, had earlier been tailed by the Royal Navy’s HMS Mersey while escorting the sanctioned tanker MV Anatoly Kolodkin through the English Channel. Exclusive data shared with this paper indicated that more than 170 shadow-fleet vessels passed near or through UK waters during the summer, with a Russian presence in the Channel almost daily.

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Denmark’s leadership framed the flare incident as a test of NATO solidarity and signaled a possible hardening of its stance toward shadow-fleet vessels, which it has so far largely avoided confronting directly. Dr Trevelyan Wing, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Geopolitics, noted that Moscow’s “growing irritation” could push Copenhagen to adopt a more robust policy, aligning it with other NATO allies that have begun detaining shadow-fleet tankers.

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• Three-quarters of Russia’s oil exports are routed through the shadow fleet, according to Dr Wing.

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• More than 170 shadow-fleet vessels transited near or through UK waters in the summer.

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• At the time of the flare incident, two Danish naval vessels and a Russian shadow-fleet ship were located south-east of Falster.

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• “Sanctions on the shadow fleet are hitting where it hurts – Russia’s ability to keep oil moving. Moscow is taking greater risks to protect that trade and each new confrontation at sea raises the chance of escalation,” — Gonzalo Saiz — Gonzalo Saiz, research fellow, Royal United Services Institute.

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