🎙️Comment by Ambassador of Russia to Denmark Vladimir Barbin to the media regarding the incident involving a Russian frigate

The Russian side will thoroughly investigate all the circumstances of the incident.

However, this is not the first time that Danish Air Force helicopters have carried out dangerous manoeuvres near Russian warships, when they were at sea and outside Denmark’s territorial waters.

For example, in September 2025, during a conversation at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I had to draw the attention to the dangerous flyovers and low-altitude hovering carried out on 27 August by a Danish Air Force helicopter over the large anti-submarine vessel ‘Vice-Admiral Kulakov’, when it sailed east of the island of Fehmarn. Such manoeuvres by the Danish military helicopter posed a risk of collision and could also have interfered with the operation of the ship’s equipment. Furthermore, the helicopter’s crew rejected to establish radio contact with the vessel and failed to respond to warnings. In this regard, I demanded that the Danish side should take the necessary measures to prevent the occurrence of similar incidents in the future and handed a note.

This latest incident demonstrates that the communication problems lie not with the Russian Navy’s vessels, but with the Danish side. The Danish side’s attempts to explain the helicopter’s provocative actions against the Russian frigate as ‘routine practice’ give rise to serious concern about the possible consequences of such recklessness.

Regrettably, the Danish side has no interest – nor has it ever had any – to prevent the situation at sea from escalating and to implement confidence-building measures. Russia’s repeated proposals to explore the possibility of concluding an agreement on the prevention of incidents at sea covering the maritime space and the airspace above these waters have previously been firmly rejected by the Danish side.