Sweden says it intercepted Russian drone during visit by French aircraft carrier

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A Russian drone carried out an unauthorized flight off southern Sweden earlier this week while a French aircraft carrier was docked in the port of Malmö, the Swedish military said Friday, in what the defense minister said was a violation of his country’s airspace.

The armed forces said in a statement that a Swedish naval vessel detected a drone taking off from a Russian signals intelligence ship in the Öresund strait, which separates Sweden from Denmark.

The military said that systems on board the Swedish ship, the HMS Rapp, took countermeasures to disrupt the drone. It said the Russian ship, the Zhigulevsk, had entered Swedish territorial waters and the Rapp approached it to monitor its transit through the strait.

The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is in the southern Swedish city of Malmö this week as part of regular NATO exercise activities. Malmö is located on the Öresund, opposite Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.

French military spokesperson Guillaume Vernet told The Associated Press that the drone was detected on Wednesday and handled by Swedish forces integrated into a security system around the carrier. He said Friday that the drone was more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Charles de Gaulle.

“This system showed it is robust, and this event had no impact on the activity of the aircraft carrier battle group,” Vernet said.

The Swedish military said it followed the Russian ship out of Swedish waters and it is now in the Baltic Sea.

It said that, after analyzing technical data, it determined that the drone carried out an unauthorized flight. In addition to that, it said, the Zhigulevsk didn’t act in accordance with rules that apply to vessels passing through the strait in Swedish waters.

“The incident constitutes a breach of Sweden’s access regulations and a violation of Swedish airspace,” Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson wrote in a social media post. “It is, of course, serious and irresponsible.”

Jonson had said on Thursday evening that the drone appeared to be Russian. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said during a visit to the French ship earlier Friday that “it is serious and maybe not surprising,” as Russia dislikes Western exercises and the West dislikes Moscow’s actions.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who visited the Charles de Gaulle along with Kristersson, emphasized that the security of the aircraft carrier wasn’t threatened.

“If indeed … there is a potential Russian origin for this incident, it would be a ridiculous provocation,” he said. He said that he had no information of his own on the source of the drone.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he didn’t know about the incident. Asked by reporters about Swedish officials linking the drone to the Russian ship, Peskov said that “it’s quite absurd” to claim that the drone was Russian just because a Russian ship was nearby.

Western officials say Russia is masterminding a campaign of sabotage and disruption across Europe. An Associated Press database has documented well over 100 incidents. Not all of them are public and it can sometimes take officials months to establish a link to Moscow.

While officials say the campaign — waged since Russia launched an all-out war against Ukraine in 2022 — aims to deprive Kyiv of support, they believe Moscow is also trying to identify Europe’s weak spots and divert law enforcement resources.