Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned European leaders on October 2 that Russia has the ability to violate airspace anywhere on the continent and urged them to develop defense forces to fend off drones.
"If the Russians dare to launch drones against Poland, or violate the airspace of northern European countries, it means this can happen anywhere," Zelenskyy told European leaders gathered for a summit on security and defense in Copenhagen.
"In Western Europe, in the south, we need fast and effective response and defense forces that know how to deal with drones," he said.
The summit of the European Political Community comes after drone sightings in Denmark forced the closure of Copenhagen's airport on September 22 and after multiple Russian drone incursions into the airspace of other European countries.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who is hosting the meeting, said Ukraine currently is the world's expert on defending against drones, and suggested other European countries "take all the experiences, all the new technology, all the innovation from Ukraine, and to put it in our own rearming."
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, whose country also recently experience drone sightings that disrupted air traffic, said European countries are learning "very dire lessons" from Ukraine's experience in fighting off Russian drones.
"We have to improve our detection capacity. We have to improve our cooperation between police and defense, and we are working on that," Store said.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Ukraine is a "powerhouse" in anti-drone technology, and is sharing technology and insights gained over the course of the war with Denmark, Poland, and NATO overall.
Shortly before the Copenhagen meeting started Russia continued its strikes on its western neighbor, hitting a rail depot in Odesa.
Oleksiy Kuleba, Ukraine's minister of territorial development, said it was an other example of Russian attempts "destroy one of the foundations of Ukraine's resilience" by hitting infrastructure.
Kuleba said on Telegram that the strike on the national rail operator in Odesa injured a train driver, who sustained shrapnel wounds. He said another attack struck infrastructure in country's north, forcing delays in railway operations in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions.
He added that missile and drone strikes were also reported in Ukraine's Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhya regions.
Frederiksen earlier called drone incursions into European countries a "hybrid war," saying she sees Ukraine as "the first line of defense."
"From a European perspective, there is only one country that is willing to threaten us, and it is Russia -- and therefore we need a very strong answer," Frederiksen said prior the meeting.
The Copenhagen summit comes at a time when prospects for peace seem as distant as ever as Russia's full-scale invasion nears the four-year mark.
As the US effort to broker a peace deal has brought little progress, the positions of Ukraine and Russia remain far apart. US President Donald Trump has so far not succeeded in organizing a trilateral summit or a face-to-face meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents.
Meanwhile, a drone alarm was sounded on October 2 in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi shortly after President Vladimir Putin spoke to a discussion club there. It was unclear where Putin was at the time of the alert, and it was not immediately known if drones had hit the region.
In his speech, Putin warned the United States against supplying long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, following remarks by US officials about such a possibility.
"Using Tomahawks without the direct participation of American military personnel is impossible. This would mark a completely new, qualitatively new stage of escalation, including in relations between Russia and the United States," Putin said.
Russia and Ukraine have agreed to periodic prisoner exchanges, and on October 2 another swap took place. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram that 185 Russian servicemen had been returned, adding that 20 civilians were also released as part of the swap.
Zelenskyy also confirmed the exchange, posting pictures of the released Ukrainians wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
"We are bringing home 185 of our defenders from Russian captivity. One hundred eighty-three are enlisted personnel and sergeants, and two are officers," Zelenskyy said on X. Twenty civilians are also returning home, he added.
