The risk of drones drifting into Finland as a result of the war in Ukraine is rising, the head of the Nordic country’s military intelligence service has told AFP.
AFP met Major General Pekka Turunen, chief of Finnish Defence Intelligence (FDI), ahead of the Thursday release of a Finnish military intelligence report that updates the security situation in the country sharing a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia.
One concern highlighted in the report was the risk of long-range drones drifting into Finland.
“The risk of a drone drifting into Finnish airspace or onto Finnish territory is growing all the time, the more Ukraine strikes in this area near the Gulf of Finland,” Turunen said.
“Ukraine has been targeting these oil ports… quite close to Finland and now we know how Russia is countering them by using GPS jamming, so if a drone was using GPS for navigation to reach its target, it could be diverted somewhere else through this jamming,” he said.
There had not been any incidents so far, he said.
Finland’s security situation has deteriorated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, but the intelligence agency noted that the situation had remained largely unchanged compared to a year ago.
“The military threat has not increased,” he said.
In the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, the Nordic country ended decades of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO, becoming a member in April 2023.
The political turmoil following US President Donald Trump’s push to seize Greenland was likely encouraging Russia to act “more freely,” as focus shifted away from Ukraine, he said.
AFP interviewed him before Trump announced on Wednesday that he was scrapping tariffs against Europe and ruling out military action to take Greenland from Denmark.
“At least on a political level, it has probably had an encouraging effect on Russia.”
“In other words, Russia sees this political climate as a sign that the West, NATO, and Europe are in disarray, on the brink of collapse,” he continued.
Trump had earlier threatened European nations with tariffs for opposing his plans to acquire Greenland, angering Brussels and putting the NATO military alliance under unprecedented strain.
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