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Poland, NATO Planes, and Russian Drones – HotAir

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September 10, 2025
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Poland, NATO Planes, and Russian Drones – HotAir

There had been something very unsettling going on in the skies over Poland since last night.

No one then – or really, now – is quite sure what to make of it, but it skirts the edge of being so dangerous.





There was suddenly a stream of reports of the airspace around Warsaw being closed and drones heading into or already in Polish airspace.

There was all sorts of confusing info streaming in and too many armchair air superiority generals making snap judgments about what their flight trackers were telling them.

Maps are a help.

The key, instead of jumping immediately on all the available no-context whiz-bang reports and activity maps, was to wait for something official from either Polish authorities or someone at NATO, and that word started coming in late in the evening.

It wasn’t a Russian attack on Poland itself, but one on Ukraine, which had violated Polish airspace on its way to Ukraine.

And the Poles were not taking the breach of their sovereign airspace lying down. They sent jets up after the drone swarm and have invoked Article 4 of the NATO charter.

Poland’s military said early Wednesday that it had shot down drones that violated its airspace during a Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine, the first time it has taken such a step in what is a major provocation for Europe and NATO.

Addressing the country’s parliament, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there were 19 intrusions of its airspace, and that a “large proportion” of the drones entered it from Belarus.

He announced that Poland has invoked Article 4 of NATO, meaning the alliance’s main political decision-making body will meet to discuss the situation and its next steps.

Tusk called the incident an “unprecedented violation of (its) airspace” and said it lasted all night – from just before midnight local time on Tuesday until 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

Polish media reported that debris from one of the drones hit a residential building in the village of Wyryki in eastern Poland, near the border with both Ukraine and Belarus. Photographs from the scene geolocated by CNN show extensive damage to a family house there.





The operation to shoot the drones down was a joint NATO operation with the Polish Air Force for the first time as well.

…Russian warplanes have long tested NATO’s responses by flying near or even into the airspace of alliance members. NATO countries rotate air-policing duties along alliance borders. Those cat-and-mouse encounters, involving traditional crewed aircraft, have become more brazen since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but remain on the alliance’s periphery.

Tuesday night’s drone incursions mark a new level of Russian provocation: The unmanned aerial vehicles reached further west over Poland than at any time previously reported during the war.

Dutch and Polish warplanes were involved in the operation to down the drones—some of which entered via Belarus—developments that Tusk said were unprecedented. Some three to four were shot down, the Polish prime minister added.

“I’m glad that Dutch F35 fighter jets were able to provide support. The Netherlands stands shoulder to shoulder with our NATO ally Poland,” Dick Schoof, the prime minister of the Netherlands, said on X.

German Patriot air-defense systems in Poland were also placed on alert, and an Italian airborne early-warning plane and an aerial refueler were launched during the incident, according to Col. Martin L. O’Donnell, a spokesman for NATO’s military command.

Interestingly, and kind of dovetailing with online speculation, the Belarusians had called the Poles to warn them that some of the Ukrainian electronic countermeasures could conceivably cause the one-way-attack drones to veer off course and inadvertently into Polish airspace. ‘Spill-over’ and ‘navigational drift’ it’s called.





…After the incursions, Belarus said that it had warned Poland about the likelihood of drones entering its territory as a result of electronic warfare deployed by Ukraine to counter the latest Russian attack.

“This helped the Polish side react quickly to the drone activity,” said Pavel Muraveiko, the head of Belarus’s armed forces. He added that Belarus had also shot down drones that entered its airspace as a result of jamming.

Understandably, the Poles were unimpressed with the explanation and do not appreciate the increasing number and deeper penetration of these hostile Russian drone flights into their country, errant or not. Not to mention, the Russians are famous for probing and testing the limits of detection and reaction from their neighbors and NATO watchers.

…Drone parts were found in the villages of Mniszkow, central Poland, and Czesniki in the country’s southeast, among other places, according to local mayors.

Eastern regions of Poland were most affected by the incident, including around Warsaw, the military command said, warning residents to stay at home. Four airports were closed down; three, including Warsaw’s, had reopened by the morning.

As for NATO, Secretary General Mark Rutte issued a statement of warning and solidarity. 

Russia’s violation of Poland’s airspace is “reckless behaviour”, irrespective of whether it was deliberate, says Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte.

In a statement, Rutte says Nato allies have expressed full solidarity with Poland. He adds that a full assessment is ongoing.

Several Nato allies were involved in shooting down the Russian drones, says Rutte, including the Netherlands, Italy, Poland and Germany.

However, the organization is not considering the incident an ‘attack,’ preferring everyone just simmer down.

NATO is not treating the drone incursion into Polish territory as an attack, a NATO source told Reuters on Wednesday, adding initial indications suggested an intentional incursion of six to ten Russian drones.

“It was the first time NATO aircraft have engaged potential threats allied airspace,” the source said, adding NATO’s Patriot air defence systems in the region had detected the drones with their radars but not engaged them.





Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that Poland was the closest it’s been to open conflict since World War II, and to add to the tension, there are annual Belarus-Russia military exercises scheduled to begin on Friday. In an abundance of caution and to maintain a ready posture while avoiding any further escalation, the Prime Minister is keeping the Belarusian-Polish border closed.

Probably prudent.

Poland’s border crossings with Belarus will remain closed “until further notice,” the Polish Interior Ministry has said, adding that the move signifies Warsaw’s readiness to take “radical action” amid a deteriorating security situation at its eastern frontier.

Poland announced on Tuesday that it would close its border crossings with Belarus on Thursday, ahead of the annual Zapad joint military exercises by Russia and Belarus, which are set to begin on Friday. 

The drills—a key military event for the two countries, closely monitored by NATO—will run this year between September 12 and 16. 

Announcing the move, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said: “We are dealing with an increasing number of provocations of various types from both Belarus and Russia.” 

The Russians throw up their hands, as they are doing now, and either say, ‘What drones?’ or ‘These people are always complaining with no proof.’ Today’s statement, just released, is a classic.

Russia’s defence ministry says it did not plan to attack any targets in Poland, after Warsaw said 19 Russian drones entered its airspace during overnight attacks on western Ukraine.

In a daily update on strikes against Ukraine, it says: “No objects on Polish territory were planned to be targeted.

…”Nonetheless, we are ready to hold consultations with the Polish defence ministry on the subject.“

There are concerns being expressed about the percentage of downed drones during the incursion – why so few? That’s rather worrying.





Someone needs to up their game.

If Poland managed to shoot down only four out of 19 (or two dozen, according to President Zelensky) drones that crossed into its airspace, that’s a much lower success rate than demonstrated by Ukraine.

Ukraine has consistently intercepted the vast majority of drones sent by Russia over the past years – for instance, 386 out of 415 (or 93%) this morning.

Hardly impressive performance by Poland, especially given how much more hardware it had at its disposal.

Tusk’s request for activation of NATO’s Article Four, if approved, means the organization’s members would then meet on a heightened status for security threat consultations.

…Tusk said Warsaw had requested the activation of Article 4 of NATO’s treaty which allows member states to request consultations with allies over security threats without triggering a military response.

The article acts as an early warning system and does not mean there is direct pressure on members to act militarily but does allow a meeting in which security concerns and how to combat them are discussed.

Since NATO was founded in 1949, Article 4 has been invoked only a handful of times—most recently by Eastern European members Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

By contrast, Article 5 stipulates an attack on one ally is considered as an attack against all allies. It sets in motion the possibility of collective self-defense although it does not automatically result in military action, rather commits members to “assist the party or parties so attacked.”

…The invocation of Article 4 would mean that NATO’s main political decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, would convene and all member states would assess the threat and agree a response.

This could result in increased surveillance and additional troop deployments, joint exercises and coordination with the EU and the UN if necessary.





As of first thing this morning, the Germans are on board with invoking Article Four.

Germany has said it supports Poland in invoking Article 4 of NATO’s treaty after Russian drones violated Polish airspace.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told the Bundestag the drones were “clearly armed” and stressed the seriousness of the incident.

Meanwhile, German government spokesman Sebastian Hille said Moscow was “testing” Ukraine’s allies.

The violation “once again shows the threat that we face and how much Germany and other NATO countries are being tested by Russia,” he told reporters.

I also have questions about the pictures of the drones they’ve supposedly found lying in Polish fields, etc. If you look up something called a Gerbera decoy drone, that’s what these appear to be. They are plywood and foam, which explains the soft landing. 

Now, I’m no tactical expert – I only play one here at HotAir – but it seems to me that a large swarm of these would be perfect for a probe because they often have no warhead and are meant to mimic the larger, deadlier Iranian-developed Shahed 136 drone. These Gerberas are good – and cheap – for letting the Russians know how far they can push the issue.

The Russians, as noted above, finally responded, saying they’re willing to discuss the incident directly with Poland, which might take some of the pressure off NATO. However, I’m pretty sure the Poles will want everyone on their side actively brainstorming. The Russians have used the ‘let’s talk – we can be reasonable’ feint so many times before, and then the next ‘oops’ is bigger than the last.

There might well be a connection between last night’s drone flight, their ‘navigational drift,’ and the world’s eyes on Israel and Qatar, too. Putin never lets a distraction go to waste.





Everybody had best be on their toes.


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