Tusk vows Warsaw's "tough" reaction to future airspace breaches
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that his country is ready to respond to any future potential airspace violations.
"Poland is ready to react toughly against all airspace violations. In such a situation, I'm counting on unequivocal and full support of our allies," Tusk wrote in English on X.
The post backed the prime minister's Monday statement that the Polish government is ready to take "any decision" necessary to neutralise threatening targets, citing Russian warplanes as an example following several Russia-orchestrated breaches of NATO airspace this month.
"...We have to be sure that we won't be left alone with this," Tusk said on that day, outlining the conditions under which such decisions would take place.
The Polish view on proper responses to Russian violations of NATO airspace was also voiced during the UN Security Council on Monday. Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, attending the meeting in New York, warned Moscow not to complain if NATO were to shoot down Russian ordnance over the member states.
"I have only one request to the Russian government: if another missile or aircraft enters our airspace without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on NATO territory, please don't come here to whine about it. You have been warned," the top diplomat said.
In September alone, three NATO states, Poland, Romania and Estonia, saw Russian weapons or military aircraft crossing into their territories and were forced to scramble the alliance's fighter jets in response. Poland and Estonia, however, invoked NATO's Article 4, which triggers consultations over threats to alliance members and serves as a political precursor to Article 5. These incidents added to the previous ones during Moscow's all-out war in Ukraine, when Moscow's weapons entered NATO skies. (PAP)
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