Sweden’s armed forces intercepted a suspected Russian drone after it flew towards the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle while the vessel was docked in the port city of Malmö. The drone reportedly took off from a Russian ship and approached the 800-foot warship, prompting Swedish authorities to act quickly to prevent any potential threat.
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The Swedish military detected the drone around six miles offshore in the Öresund strait and initiated a jamming operation to disrupt its flight path. According to a spokesman for the armed forces, a naval vessel observed the drone during a maritime patrol and countermeasures were taken shortly afterwards. Contact with the drone was subsequently lost, and it is believed either to have returned to its mothership or crashed into the sea.
The Charles de Gaulle, the world’s largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier outside the United States, typically carries several thousand personnel and around 30 fighter jets. The ship is currently in Malmö as part of the “Lafayette 26” mission in the North Atlantic, which includes multinational exercises in the Baltic Sea designed to deter threats to undersea infrastructure such as communication cables.
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There was no immediate comment from the French navy or Russian authorities. Sweden, now a member of Nato, has opened an investigation into the incident to determine whether any laws were breached. Swedish military intelligence has recently warned of increased Russian activity in the region, including forms of hybrid warfare such as cyber-attacks, sabotage and disinformation campaigns.
