Poland said Wednesday that he had scrambled the planes with the allies to tear down “hostile objects” that violate their airspace during a Russian attack against neighboring Ukraine, the first for a NATO country during the war.
“Airplanes have used weapons against hostile objects,” said Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, on social networks, adding: “We are in constant contact with the NATO command.”
The incursion occurred when Russia unleashed a flood of strikes in Ukraine, even in the western city of Lviv, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the Polish border.
Russian drones and missiles have entered the airspace of NATO members, including Poland, several times during the three and a half years of Russia, but an NATO country has never tried to tear them down.
A cornerstone of the Western Military Alliance is the principle that an attack against any member is considered an attack against all.
The operational command of the military of Poland criticized the violations of the airspace “unprecedented”, saying that he had seen about a dozen drone objects and demolished some of them.
“This is an act of aggression that has created a real threat to the security of our citizens,” he said.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed that weapons had been used against invading objects, saying on social networks that a “operation related to multiple violations of Polish airspace is being carried out.”
The Polish government announced that it will celebrate a “extraordinary” cabinet meeting at 8 am (11 am pkt).
‘Provocation’
The operation occurred when the authorities closed the airspace over the country, according to a statement from the main Chopin airport in Warsaw, where the flights stopped.
A day arrives after the newly elected nationalist president of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, warned that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was ready to invade more countries after launching his war in Ukraine.
“We do not trust the good intentions of Vladimir Putin,” Nawrocki told journalists on Tuesday at a press conference in Helsinki.
“We believe that Vladimir Putin is ready to invade other countries.”
The NATO Poland member, an important defender of Ukraine, houses more than one million Ukrainian refugees and is a key transit point for Western humanitarian and military aid for the country devastated by war.
Last month, Warsaw said that a Russian military drone fell to his airspace and exploded in cultivation lands in East Poland, qualifying the incident as a “provocation.”
Poland in 2023 said a Russian missile had crossed his airspace to attack Ukraine.
And in November 2022, two civilians were killed when a Ukrainian anti -aircraft missile fell into a village near the border.
Poland invokes NATO article 4 for urgent conversations after drone incursion
The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, said on Wednesday that the NATO member had invoked article 4 of the Western Defense Alliance for urgent conversations after the Russian drones violated their airspace.
Tusk told Parliament that Poland had identified 19 violations of his airspace during the night and demolished at least three drones, adding that no one was harmed in the “Russian action.”
“The allied consultations that I refer to now have taken the form of a formal request to invoke article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty,” he added.
The North Atlantic Council, the main political decision -making agency of NATO, met Wednesday morning for its regular weekly meeting.
However, according to diplomats, the allies decided that the meeting would be held under article 4 of the Treaty of the Alliance.
According to article 4, any member can call urgent conversations when he feels that his “territorial integrity, political independence or security” are at risk.
The Polish case marked the eighth time the article has been invoked since the Alliance was founded in 1949.
Wednesday’s conversations are the third time that article 4 is invoked to address the incursions of Russia and Invasion of Ukraine.
The collective security of NATO is based on its principle of article 5: if a member is attacked, the entire alliance defends itself.
That article has only been invoked once in the history of NATO, after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.
