As many as 19 Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace in the early morning hours on September 10, prompting Poland to scramble F-16s to react to the breach. Working together with Dutch F-35s and Italian G550 early warning aircraft, Poland destroyed several of the incoming drones whose trajectories were viewed as threatening, marking the first shoot-down of Russian drones over a NATO country. An A330 tanker from NATO’s multinational MRTT unit aided the mission, as did a German Patriot air-defense system stationed in Poland.
In the hours following the drone incursion, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Poland was triggering NATO Article IV, which enables a member to request consultations with the other allies in the wake of a threat to its territorial integrity.
“The fact that these drones, which posed a security threat, were shot down changes the political situation,” Tusk told Poland’s parliament. “I have no reason to claim we’re on the brink of war, but a line has been crossed, and it’s incomparably more dangerous than before.”
At a press conference, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that the Allies had met for discussions under Article IV, and would be preparing a full assessment of the situation. “What is clear is that the violation last night is not an isolated incident,” Rutte told journalists, though he declined to say at this stage whether the Alliance viewed the incursion as intentional.
For its part, Russia not only denied the airspace violation, but also suggested the drones weren’t even Russian. The accusations are ‘groundless’, according to the Russian chargé d’affaires in Poland, Andrey Ordash. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov sounded a similar tune, stating that the European Union and NATO are accusing Moscow of a ‘provocation’.
The September 10 drone incursion into Poland came amid another of Russia’s nightly aerial bombardments of Ukrainian cities. Proximity to the war in Ukraine makes mistakes and accidents like entering a third party’s airspace possible – a Ukrainian long-range drone struck Estonia late last month likely after experiencing jamming – but it’s also the latest in a string of recent airspace violations in NATO countries bordering Russia.
Throughout July, Lithuania reported several Russian drone incursions, including one-way attack UAVs laden with explosives, leading the government to declare a no-fly zone near its capital and request additional NATO counter-UAV assistance. On August 20, a drone reportedly of Russian origin exploded in a village in eastern Poland. And already this week, Estonia summoned Russia’s representative in Tallinn after a Russian Mi-8 military helicopter violated the eastern European country’s airspace in the Baltic Sea.
The rising rate of these airspace incidents comes as European intelligence agencies increasingly warn of Russian sabotage action in NATO countries, including arson and cyberattacks.
It remains to be seen how NATO will respond to the airspace incursion, which did not cause any casualties in Poland. The episode reinforces the need for modern counter-UAV systems, while also highlighting a strong degree of coordination between the NATO Allies, considering the number of countries whose assets were involved in aiding the shoot-down of the threats.
Military markets analyst, covering Eurasia, Middle East, and Africa.
