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Denmark reopens listening post to eavesdrop on Russia

2017-11-19 By Anders Puck Nielsen Leave a Comment

The Danish Defense Intelligence Service is building a listening post on the island of Bornholm in order to eavesdrop on Russian radio communications. That reports Danish newspaper Politiken.

The mast will be 85 meters high, and the newspaper writes that it will be focused on the VHF frequency band. That sounds like a very narrow purpose, so I think it is safe to assume that the mast is also equipped for other frequencies.

A similar listening post was closed in 2012 because it was considered irrelevant to listen to Russian radio traffic in a security climate where international terrorism was seen as the threat. At that point the decision got some critique because it happened just after the defense had modernized the listening post for 23 million DKK.

In connection with the decision to close the listening post in 2012, former commandant of the Danish Defense Academy major general Karsten Møller said that it had been clear since the mid 1990s that there were no serious military threats is Eastern Europe:

“The Russian forces were in a terrible condition, the Warsaw Pact had broken down, and the Baltic Fleet was basically rusting up idly. But when the listening post was allowed to exist for so long, it has probably been a result of local politics as well. At the same time some people in the military continued to have a Cold War mindset and were not convinced that it was over.”

What a difference a few years can make.

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Filed Under: Cyber Warfare Tagged With: Denmark

Anders Puck Nielsen is the writer of the Romeo Squared blog. He is a military analyst at the Center for Maritime Operations at the Royal Danish Defense College.

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