Where are our allies? Is it true that radar systems, deployed there in 2022 and 2023, were withdrawn from the border areas? These are questions the Ministry of National Defence (MON) and the Prime Minister should answer. This is a limitation of the security of NATO’s eastern flank, of the security of the Republic of Poland (RP). Why wasn’t Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty triggered – meaning consultations within NATO? – These are only some of the questions addressed to the government by former Deputy Defence Minister Wojciech Skurkiewicz after a combat drone entered Polish territory.
The echoes of the drone’s entry and crash on Polish territory are not fading.
During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday near Osiny in the Lublin region, an incident occurred in which a military drone fell into a cornfield and exploded. The explosion shattered windows in nearby houses. On Wednesday afternoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz announced that the object was a Russian drone and emphasized that the incident was a provocation by Russia, occurring at a particularly sensitive moment when discussions about peace in Ukraine are underway.
According to the prosecutor’s office, which completed its investigation at the site in Osiny, the drone came from Belarusian territory. One of the versions under consideration is that the drone may have struck nearby power lines, since its engine was found close to them. The prosecutor’s office therefore secured three sections of the lines that showed “traces of fresh damage.”
Earlier, the Operational Command stated in a communiqué that “no violation of Polish airspace was recorded either from the direction of Ukraine or Belarus.”
“Why do we even have the Air Operations Center?”
However, many questions and doubts remain. Some of them were raised by Wojciech Skurkiewicz, former Deputy Minister of National Defence. – The drone spent about 40 minutes in Polish airspace, and until midnight both Polish and allied aircraft, jets on duty, were operating. If we add to this the cacophony in the morning, and the fact that military experts arrived at the crash site only in the afternoon, around 2-3 PM on Wednesday, then all this points to the ineffectiveness of the Minister of Defence and all the relevant services. Where is Prime Minister Donald Tusk? From that moment until now, he hasn’t written even a single letter on Twitter about this incident – Skurkiewicz said on TV Republika.
He added that “he understands a certain kind of nervousness when it comes to explaining the government’s actions and omissions.” – Let us recall the 2023 case, when in mid-March MON was informed about an object found near Bydgoszcz, which had entered in December 2022. The [Defence Minister] immediately took action and made decisions. Those responsible for failing to inform the leadership of the ministry – and I myself learned about the matter only a day after Minister Błaszczak received the information – lost their posts: the Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces (WP) and the Operational Commander of the Armed Forces (RSZ) – the former deputy defence minister emphasized. – I am asking again: there is DO RSZ (Operational Command of the Armed Forces), which oversees the Air Operations Center (COP), staffed by Poland’s top officers, with many posts, monitoring Polish airspace, with liaison officers from NATO member states. Why do we have COP if we fail to see violations of our airspace? This object spent 40 minutes in Polish airspace. The law is structured in such a way that it allows for the immediate neutralization of objects entering the airspace. That did not happen – Skurkiewicz added.
He assessed that “the explanations from the military” were the same as those heard in 2023. “Where are our allies?”
On the political level I ask the Defence Minister and the Polish Prime Minister: where are our allied forces? Where are the Patriot missile batteries, which under PiS were stationed at the border – are the Germans there today? Did the Americans have to withdraw from protecting Polish skies on the eastern flank? What about the British, who under PiS had deployed one of their most advanced systems, Sky Sabre, to support and defend us? Where are our allies? Is it true that radar systems deployed there in 2022 and 2023 were withdrawn from the border areas? These are questions the MON and the Prime Minister should answer. This is a weakening of NATO’s eastern flank, of Poland’s security. Why wasn’t Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty triggered – meaning consultations within NATO? We have that right, and in a situation of territorial threat we should invoke Article 4 – said Wojciech Skurkiewicz.