Tuesday evening, NATO fighter jets shot down Russian drones that had entered the airspace of Poland. NATO’s secretary common says this underlines the necessity for Europe to higher arm itself.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Greater than a dozen Russian drones entered the airspace of Poland final evening, triggering NATO to scramble fighter jets to shoot them down. It was a harmful escalation of the conflict in neighboring Ukraine, and it was the primary time within the historical past of NATO that alliance fighters engaged enemy plane in allied airspace. NPR’s Rob Schmitz has been protecting this, and he joins us from Berlin. Hello.
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: Rob, what will we learn about these drones and why they have been flying within the airspace of a NATO member?
SCHMITZ: Yeah, we all know this occurred the identical evening as a large-scale drone and missile assault that Russia launched on Ukraine. Ukraine’s air power says greater than 400 Russian drones have been concerned in final evening’s assault, together with areas in western Ukraine that border Poland. We’re nonetheless not sure concerning the actual variety of Russian drones that flew into Polish airspace, however Poland’s authorities believes it was greater than a dozen and as many as 19. And as soon as these drones crossed into Poland, NATO scrambled fighter jets. That included Polish F-16s, Dutch F-35s, German Patriot air protection programs and even an Italian surveillance plane. And numerous these drones have been then shot down.
SUMMERS: Had been these drones armed? Had been they focusing on NATO territory?
SCHMITZ: Effectively, in response to German Protection Minister Boris Pistorius, these drones have been intentionally set on this course into Poland and that they have been armed with ammunition, however he didn’t elaborate on what precisely their payloads have been.
SUMMERS: Now, Poland’s authorities invoked Article 4 of the NATO treaty, and that is a hardly ever used mechanism. It is triggered when a member state is below menace, and it permits an emergency assembly with different NATO states. So inform us, how’s NATO responding?
SCHMITZ: Effectively, NATO Secretary Normal Mark Rutte spoke this afternoon to reporters, and he stated NATO has launched an investigation to collect extra particulars about this incursion. However he used at this time’s incident to underline the necessity for Europe to start out arming itself. Here is what he stated.
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MARK RUTTE: This solely reinforces the significance of NATO and the trail to which allies agreed at our summit in The Hague earlier this 12 months. We have to make investments extra in our protection, ramp up protection manufacturing, so we have now what we have to deter and defend. And we have to proceed to assist Ukraine, whose safety is interlinked with our personal.
SCHMITZ: And, Juana, he additionally had a message for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He stated that Putin should cease this conflict in Ukraine, he should cease focusing on harmless civilians and that he should cease violating allied airspace.
SUMMERS: How has Russia responded to this point?
SCHMITZ: Yeah, it has been a little bit of a combined response. Earlier at this time, an official from Russia’s ally and Poland’s neighbor, Belarus, appeared to border final evening’s incident as an accident that was brought on when the drones veered off track after encountering what they known as digital interference. In different phrases, it was an accident.
However in a while, Russia’s protection ministry then stated it had not deliberate to hit any targets in Poland and recommended that Poland was out of vary of Russian drones, which isn’t true. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov additionally weighed in. He accused the management of the EU and NATO of creating accusations in opposition to Russia on what he known as a each day foundation with out offering proof. However Peskov stopped wanting denying Russian involvement.
SUMMERS: Rob, what comes subsequent?
SCHMITZ: Yeah, so NATO members have already met at this time, and the alliance will examine this case additional. , it is price mentioning right here that this incursion occurred a day after Poland stated that it had closed its border with Belarus on account of what it known as aggressive navy workouts, in addition to a rising variety of provocations from each Russia and Belarus. So the scenario alongside that border has been fairly tense for fairly a while already.
SUMMERS: NPR’s Rob Schmitz in Berlin. Thanks, Rob.
SCHMITZ: Thanks.
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