Poland said on Wednesday that NATO fighter jets shot down multiple Russian drones that entered its airspace, while Moscow is denying that its forces launched drones into the NATO country.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that a total of 19 drones entered Poland’s airspace and that a large number of them came from Belarus, which also said it destroyed drones over its territory and suggested they were off course due to electronic jamming during an exchange of strikes between Russia and Ukraine.
In response, Tusk invoked NATO’s Article 4, which states that NATO members will “consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened.”
According to CNN, Polish and Dutch jets intercepted the drones with assistance from Italian, German, and NATO’s multinational forces. Drones have previously entered Poland’s airspace, but Warsaw said this was the first time shots were fired by NATO jets to intercept them.
Tusk told Poland’s parliament that the incident marked “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two.” While debris landed across Poland, there were no casualties.
Back in November 2022, a Ukrainian air defense missile landed in Poland and killed two people. It was initially reported as a Russian missile, and Ukrainian officials tried to portray it as a deliberate Russian attack, likely in an effort to get NATO to directly intervene in the war, which risks a nuclear conflict.
In response to Poland’s claims about the drones that entered its airspace, the Russian Embassy in Poland told Newsweek: “The Polish side once again failed to present evidence of the Russian origin of the objects that entered Polish airspace (and there is no reason to expect that it will), and completely groundlessly accused Russia of provocative actions.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that it carried out attacks in Ukraine overnight, but that “no targets on the territory of Poland were planned for destruction” and that the drones that “allegedly crossed the Polish border, do not exceed 700 kilometers.”
Pointing to the Defense Ministry statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said, “These specific facts completely debunk the story again spread by Poland to further escalate the Ukrainian crisis.”
Tusk suggested that the incident couldn’t have been accidental since a significant number of drones entered Poland. “When one or two drones does it, it is possible that it was a technical malfunction. In this case, there were 19 breaches and it simply defies imagination that that could be accidental,” he said.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that the alliance was assessing whether the incident was deliberate. “Whether it was intentionally or not, it is absolutely reckless. It is absolutely dangerous,” he said.
President Trump responded on Truth Social, writing, “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”
