An extraordinary meeting of the United Nations Security Council will soon be convened following the intrusion of approximately 20 suspected Russian drones into Polish territory. The Polish Foreign Ministry announced this: "At Poland's request, an extraordinary meeting of the United Nations Security Council will be convened regarding Russia's violation of Polish airspace," the ministry stated on X.
The country has meanwhile limited air traffic along its eastern border: a restriction, in force until early December, "put in place to ensure national security," the Polish Air Navigation Agency said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Putin's Russia rejects the accusations and in turn points the finger at Poland. "No evidence has been presented that these drones are of Russian origin. We believe the accusations are unfounded," thundered Moscow's chargé d'affaires, Andrei Ordash, in Warsaw after being summoned to address the drones' incursion. The Kremlin hasn't commented immediately, referring the matter to its Ministry of Defense, which accuses the Polish government of "spreading myths" to "increase the escalation" of what Moscow calls the "Ukrainian crisis," namely the aggression of Russian troops against Kiev. This accusation is somewhat symmetrical to that of Polish Prime Minister Tusk, who calls it a "large-scale provocation."
"EU and NATO leaders accuse Russia of provocations every day. Most of the time without even trying to present arguments," Kremlin spokesman Peskov simply said, before passing the buck to the Defense Ministry, which began outlining its own narrative. First, he claimed that the drones in question were aimed at hitting "military-industrial enterprises" in western Ukraine. And that there was no target in Poland, explaining that "the maximum range" of the drones, "which reportedly crossed the Polish border, does not exceed 700 kilometers." This is as if to imply that Poland is out of range for its drones: they could never have reached that far.
This claim has been denied by the New York Times. Meanwhile, Verify BBC claims that three analysts have "identified" the alleged "images of a largely intact drone" as those of a Gerbera: "A low-cost, multipurpose unmanned aerial vehicle widely used by Russia as a decoy to distract air defense systems in large-scale attacks on Ukraine."
Meanwhile, Minsk, an ally of the Tsar, also announced that it had shot down drones over its territory, citing aircraft that "had lost their way" due to electronic problems. This clarification supports the error hypothesis. This theory has been refuted by many: "The number of drones that ended up in Polish airspace makes it unlikely that it was an accident," Chatham House researcher Marion Messmer told the Guardian. She added that "this suggests that Russia is trying to verify the location of NATO's red lines." But not everyone agrees. "It's unlikely that they were sent to Poland intentionally, given their poor guidance," retired US Colonel Mark Cancian told the BBC, referring to the possibility that they were Gerbera drones. "Nineteen is a lot, but they could have been launched by the same unit, which made a similar mistake in all its launches. I don't see - says Cancian - what advantage Russia could gain by intentionally pinching NATO at a time when it wants Europe to remain passive."
(Unioneonline)