NATO forces shoot down Russian drones over Poland
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The news: NATO member Poland shot down Russian drones over Polish airspace, in what Warsaw said was an “unprecedented violation” of its territory on Wednesday.
The context: The operation which took place early morning local time, involved fighter jets and air defence systems from Poland and the Netherlands as Russia carried out a widespread attack in western Ukraine.
Poland's military command said Russian drones repeatedly violated Polish airspace during its attack in western Ukraine, but that operations against these violations had concluded.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said more than 10 Russian Shahed drones entered Polish airspace.
Ahead of an emergency cabinet meeting in the capital Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters “It was probably a large-scale provocation,” while military officials in NATO said Russia’s attack was likely part of its objective to test the response of the alliance’s member countries to an incursion.
The European Union’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said in a post on X that the incident was “the most serious European airspace violation by Russia since the war began, and indications suggest it was intentional, not accidental.”
German Patriot air-defence systems in Poland were placed on alert, and an Italian airborne early-warning plane and an aerial refueler from NATO’s Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport aircraft fleet were launched during the incident, Colonel Martin L. O’Donnell, a spokesman for NATO’s military command, told the WSJ.
NATO’s assembly of national representatives, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), is scheduled to meet on Wednesday in Brussels, with NAC spokesperson Allison Hart stating that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is “in touch with Polish leadership and NATO is consulting closely with Poland.”
The move marks the first time a member of the NATO alliance has fired shots in the war which begin in February 2022 when Russian launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
