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Poland has said that the United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting, as Warsaw requests an international response to an incursion of Russian drone that the NATO member denounced as an unprecedented violation of his air space.
About 19 Russian drones crossed the borders of Poland in the early hours of Wednesday, some of which were shot by Polish planes and NATO allies.
The meeting will take place on Friday, the United Nations Ambassador said to the National press agency.
“We draw the attention of the world to this unprecedented attack on Russian drones against a Member State not only of the United Nations, but also of the EU and NATO,” Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said on local radio.
The incursion has marked the first time that NATO forces have shot Russian assets since the large -scale invasion of Moscow Ukraine and have raised questions about the state of NATO’s eastern flank in the face of Russian air attacks.
Latvia, which borders Russia and Bélarus, ordered the closure of its airspace along its eastern border for at least a week from Thursday afternoon.
“There is no immediate threat at the moment, but the action is necessary,” defense Minister Andris Sprūds said on Thursday. An armed Russian military drone, which would be on the way to Ukraine, crashed into Latvia in September 2024.
Warsaw asked for additional air defense capacities from its NATO allies. The alliance debates its reaction to the incursion of Russia after Warsaw triggered article 4, a procedure designed to coordinate a collective response by its 32 members.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called Moscow’s “Large -scale Provocation” drone on Wednesday which brought Poland “the closest that we have been to open the conflicts since the Second World War”.
France, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands had made “proposals for concrete support for the air defense of our country,” said Tusk.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday evening that he would deploy three Rafale fighter planes to protect “Polish airspace and the eastern flank of Europe”.
“The security of the European continent is our top priority,” he added. “We will not give in to the growing intimidation of Russia.”
The German Defense Ministry said that it would extend the mission of an Air Force squadron on a alert in an air base near the German-Polish border. The deployment was to end at the end of September.
He said it would also double the number of Eurofights jets and crews participating in the deployment of two to four.
Several of the drones were launched by the Russian ally Bidaruss. No victim has been reported.
EU allies in Poland strongly condemned the foray on Wednesday, saying that Moscow increased tensions rather than looking for a truce in his war against Ukraine. The Italian Minister of Defense, Guido Crosetto, described it as “a deliberate attack” which showed that “Moscow deliberately feeds an escalation that no one wants”.
US President Donald Trump did not match the conviction. “What is Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones?” He wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday. “Here we go!”
Polish President Karol Nawrocki later said that he and Trump had “confirmed the Allied unit” during a call on Wednesday evening. However, nothing indicates that Trump was ready to increase military support for Poland.
Sikorski urged Trump to adopt a more difficult position against Russia on Wednesday, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin “made fun of President Trump’s peace efforts.”
Additional report by Richard Milne and Laura Pitel
