Allies bolster Poland air defense

WARSAW (AFP) — France and Germany moved to bolster defense of Polish airspace Thursday as the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting to discuss Warsaw’s accusation that Moscow launched a drone raid on its territory.

Poland branded the incident, which prompted Polish and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces to shoot down several drones overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, a deliberate “unprecedented” attack on the country, NATO and the European Union (EU).

Moscow denied targeting the country and said there was no evidence the drones were Russian. The drones intruded as Russia unleashed a barrage of strikes across Ukraine as part of an ongoing offensive there following its 2022 invasion.

United States President Donald Trump, who has been trying unsuccessfully to broker a halt to the war in Ukraine, told reporters on Thursday that the alleged incursion may have happened by “mistake.”

But Polish President Karol Nawrocki warned Thursday during a visit to an airbase in western Poland that the incident was “an attempt to test the mechanism of action within NATO and our readiness to respond.”

Germany said it would “extend and expand” its participation in NATO’s Air Policing program to provide more cover to Polish airspace.

Its defense ministry said it would double the number of Eurofighter jets deployed to four and extend their mission by three months to the end of the year.

And French President Emmanuel Macron announced in a post on X that France would “deploy three Rafale fighter jets to contribute to the protection of Polish airspace and of NATO’s Eastern Flank together with our Allies.”

The UN Security Council’s South Korean presidency announced Thursday it would hold an emergency meeting to discuss Warsaw’s claim of a “violation of Polish airspace by Russia” on Friday at 3 p.m.

Poland boosted its security Thursday, closing air traffic along its eastern borders with Belarus and Ukraine to civilian flights up to an altitude of three kilometers until 9 December.