Vladimir Putin’s drones attack a new alarm in Ukraine and Poland. And a new reaction of NATO. While also in Romania a pilot -free aircraft has bounded in Bucharest airspace by triggering a surveillance operation: hunting followed him until “it disappeared from the radar”.
The alert returned high when on X the operational command of the armed forces wrote: “Due to the threat on the border with Poland, Polish planes and allies operate in our air space and air defense systems and radar reconnaissance systems on the ground have reached the highest level of alert”, immediately bringing back to the night between 9 and 10 September and the intrusion of about twenty Russian drones in the Polish airplane space – Most demolished by the Air Force of Warsaw with the allied help – which has enhanced the fear for winds of war that pushes too close to the borders of the West.
This time the alarm immediately returned, with the reassurance of “averted threat” spread immediately after by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, underlining how it had been a “preventive” operation, while also reopening the Lublin airport that had been temporarily in stand-by. But Tusk’s words leave no room for doubts about the tension that is palpable: “We remain brigade”, he writes, after thanking “all those who were involved in the operation, both in the air and on the ground”.
The episode is in fact nothing more than the tangible confirmation of the renewed sense of urgency imposed by the crisis of drones in Poland, with the NATO called to react by launching the east sentinel operation. That is, the need to give themselves new and agreed tools to cope with a scenario that until now seemed to be able to remain limited to the ‘contingency plans’ dossier traced by the military vertices. From Washington, the secretary of state Marco Rubio stresses that the raid of Russian drones in the Pochi skies at the beginning of the week was an “unpleasant and dangerous development”.
«The question is whether the drones have been addressed specifically towards Poland. If so, if the tests lead us to this conclusion, then obviously it will be highly provocative, “he said. And this while the joint exercises of Russia and Belarus continue, ‘Zapad 2025’, close to European borders: reported Moscow of its MIG equipped with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles in flight on the neutral waters of the Barents sea in the context of “a combat training mission”.
“The crews exercised in the launch of a simulated air attack against structures of critical importance of a fictitious enemy,” said the Russian Ministry of Defense known. So next Wednesday the Atlantic Council will meet again and better study the details of the sentinel, with each country called to explain its contribution. The fact remains that the alliance, when it comes to drones, does not have Ukraine know-how and therefore the techniques developed by Kiev in these almost four years of war begin to throat.
A group of Polish officers, for example, is about to go to the Ukrainian capital in “Stage”. “We plan that the delegation will arrive on Thursday to collaborate with our strength: today only we have the experience necessary to face challenges,” said Foreign Minister Sybiha. A condition that allows Volodymyr Zelensky to launch, also an offer to the partners: “We protect our skies together”.