Poland has shot down Russian drones for the first time in the war in Ukraine, which began three and a half years ago. This escalation of tension immediately caused a major shock in NATO. The Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces reported early Wednesday that it had shot down several unmanned aircraft overnight that had entered its airspace during a new Russian offensive against Ukrainian targets. According to a statement from the military command, after monitoring a"dozen" objects by radar, Polish forces and allied countries of the Alliance decided to neutralize those that posed a"threat" to citizens. The military command has classified the action of these vehicle bombs as an"unprecedented violation of Polish airspace."
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who held an extraordinary meeting of the National Security Office with his ministers, announced that his country has requested that NATO open consultations, a possibility enshrined in Article 4 of the founding treaty, whenever a member state considers its"territorial integrity, political independence, or security" to be "threatened."
“I have no reason to say we are on the brink of war, but a line has been crossed, and it is incomparably more dangerous than before,” Tusk said. “This situation brings us closer to open conflict than we have been since World War II.” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has denounced Russia’s “reckless behavior,” Silvia Ayuso reports. “The full analysis (of the incident) is still ongoing, but whether intentional or not, this was a reckless and dangerous attack.”
According to Polish military records, Russian drones violated airspace 19 times overnight. Security forces have already found seven of these devices—it is unknown whether they were simple decoys or contained explosives—and"missile debris of unknown origin," according to the Polish Interior Ministry.
The first explanation for what happened came from the Belarusian government. Minsk, Moscow's main ally in the region, has maintained that the drones went astray due to electronic warfare and that it informed both Poland and Lithuania of their flight toward the border.
The Russian Defense Ministry says it had no specific targets in Poland, Javier G. Cuesta reports. “All designated targets [in Ukraine] were hit,” the department headed by Andrei Belousov said. “The maximum flight range of the Russian unmanned aerial vehicles that allegedly crossed the border with Poland does not exceed 700 kilometers,” the ministry said. “However, we are ready to hold consultations on this matter with the Polish Defense Ministry,” it added.
Early this morning, the Polish military announced that, due to the development of a new Russian offensive against"facilities" on Ukrainian territory, aircraft from its air force and NATO partners were on"preemptive alert," as were air defense systems deployed on the ground. Aircraft and military equipment from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and the Alliance itself, in addition to Polish F-16 fighters, participated in the operations.
Just minutes earlier, Ukrainian monitoring channels had reported that several Russian attack drones had crossed the country's border and had been shot down by Polish fighter jets. According to Ukrainian air tracking websites, Geran-type unmanned aerial vehicles, an improved variant of the Iranian Shahed used by Moscow in its offensive against Kyiv, first flew over northern and western Ukraine, before crossing the border into European Union and NATO territory.
This is the first time that several of these aircraft have entered Poland simultaneously and continued their flight for several kilometers beyond the border. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, based on information from his country's Air Force, explained that the first incursion by a Russian drone into Poland took place at 00:50 (one hour behind in mainland Spain). Dozens of these aircraft subsequently approached western Ukraine, some of them from Belarusian airspace.
Late Tuesday, dozens of drones took off from southern Belarus and the western Russian border toward central and western Ukraine. Around 2:00 a.m. Wednesday, some of these drones were shot down while flying over the Ukrainian capital. The Russian offensive, carried out in groups or swarms, has launched a larger than usual number of these vehicle bombs toward cities such as Lviv and Lutsk, in the western part of Ukraine, which borders Poland.
In a second phase, Russia fired around 40 missiles, also toward the west of the country. The Ukrainian Air Force recorded 415 Shahed (Iranian-made) and Gerber (Russian-made) attack drones, as well as other models, overnight, arriving from batteries in the Russian Federation and the occupied Crimean peninsula. Defense forces managed to shoot down 386 of these attack vehicles.
So far this September, Russia has launched around 3,000 attack drones into Ukrainian territory. Moscow broke all records in the early hours of last Sunday by launching 810 drones against virtually every region of Ukraine. One of them crashed into a building in Kyiv, killing three people, including a woman and her baby.
Airport closures
Rzeszów Airport, in eastern Poland, about 60 kilometers from the border crossing into Ukraine, announced its temporary closure overnight due to air activity. Subsequently, according to a statement from the US Federal Aviation Administration, Warsaw Chopin International Airport also ceased operations due to"unplanned military activity related to ensuring state security." These two airports were joined in the suspension of operations by Modlin and Lublin airports.
“Efforts are underway to locate the possible impact sites of these objects,” the Polish military command stated. The first drone found by police was in the town of Czosnowka, near the border with Belarus. The Polish General Staff has urged citizens not to approach, touch, or move the device if they find a downed drone or any fragments. “These objects may still be dangerous and must be inspected by bomb disposal patrols,” it warned.
Since February 2022, when Putin launched the major invasion of Ukraine, Poland has kept its fighter jets on alert, anticipating the war crossing the border. On several occasions, a Russian drone or fragments of one of these vehicle bombs have reached Polish soil after a major nighttime offensive.
On Tuesday, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz stated that any drones entering the eastern border must be shot down, although he left the final decision to the Operational Command. The day before, Polish authorities had found the wreckage of one of these aircraft in the town of Polatycze, near the border with Belarus.
The violation of airspace by these drones threatens an even greater escalation of tensions between the West and Russia. The act of"aggression," as the Polish operational command has described it, could fall under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. This clause establishes the principle of collective defense, stating that an attack on one of the Alliance's member countries will be interpreted as an attack on all. Warsaw has not yet requested their activation.
