A Russian navy corvette flew a surveillance drone within metres of a Danish unmanned surface vessel in the Baltic Sea last month, highlighting rising tensions over military and commercial activity near the Danish island of Bornholm.
The Russian warship Soobrazitelny (hull number 531), operating with its automatic identification system switched off, passed the Danish sea drone Stormborn at a distance of roughly 200 metres on 25 June before launching a surveillance drone that circled the vessel at close range. The encounter occurred about 30 kilometres southeast of Bornholm. Stormborn, owned by a Danish startup, was testing radar and sonar equipment supplied by defence firms MyDefence and Terma and could eventually support military surveillance of suspicious shipping in the Baltic.
Days later, the same corvette threatened Greenpeace activists approaching the tanker Kira K off Germany's northern coast. According to German media, 42 shadow-fleet tankers transited the German coastline between early March and mid-June.