Poland’s foreign minister has said the Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace was an attempt by the Kremlin to test Nato’s reactions by incremental escalations without prompting a full-scale response. Radosław Sikorski confirmed that while the drones that entered Poland last week were capable of carrying ammunition, they were not loaded with explosives. “Interestingly, they were all duds, which suggests to me that Russia tried to test us without starting a war,” Sikorski told the Guardian in Kyiv.
He dismissed suggestions that Polish air defences had been unprepared for the incursion, given the fact some of the drones travelled hundreds of miles into Polish territory, and that accounts suggest only three or four out of about 19 were shot down. “The drones didn’t reach their targets and there was minor damage to property, nobody was hurt. If it happened in Ukraine, by Ukrainian definitions, that would be regarded as a 100% success,” he said.
Nato announced on Friday that it would deploy more jets to the alliance’s eastern flank to protect against future drone attacks. On Saturday, Polish and allied aircraft were again deployed due to a renewed threat of drone strikes in western Ukraine. The airport in the eastern Polish city of Lublin was closed and people in border areas received SMS alerts to exercise caution. However, there was no reported incursion this time.
On Saturday, Romania became the latest Nato member state to report a Russian drone incursion in its airspace, scrambling two F-16 fighter jets to monitor the situation. The country’s defence ministry said it strongly condemned Russia’s actions, which were described by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, as unacceptable. Romania summoned Moscow’s ambassador, Vladimir Lipaev, to the foreign ministry over the incursion and said after the meeting on Sunday evening that Romania had “conveyed its strong protest against this unacceptable and irresponsible act, which constitutes a violation of [its’] sovereignty”.
Sikorski said the Polish response would have been “much tougher” if last week’s attack had caused injuries or deaths in its territory, but declined to elaborate on how such a response could look in a future scenario. “With an aggressor and a liar like Putin, only the toughest counter-pressures work,” he said. Polish anti-drone teams will receive training from Ukrainian operators to help defend against future attacks, said Sikorski. “The Ukrainians have better equipment for dealing with Russian drones, and they have much deeper and more up-to-date experience of resisting the Russian army,” he said.
