“At noon, the chargé d’affaires of the Russian embassy in Warsaw was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MSZ) and handed a protest note,” announced Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski. He added that he had informed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the violation of Polish airspace.
During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, the Operational Command of the Armed Forces reported that during the Russian Federation’s attack on Ukraine, Polish airspace was repeatedly violated by drones. The drones that posed a direct threat were shot down.
“We have no doubt that this was not an accidental incident,”said Sikorski at a press conference. He emphasized that NATO’s allied mechanisms had worked and that Polish, Dutch, Italian, and German forces had taken part in the operation.
“We are dealing with an unprecedented case of an attack not only on Polish territory, but also on NATO and European Union territory,” he added. He pointed out that in response, Poland had appealed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to invoke Article 4.
The Foreign Minister reported that at noon the chargé d’affaires of the Russian Federation’s embassy in Poland had been summoned and handed a protest note. He also informed that he had held broad consultations, including with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas. “I also passed the information to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio,” he added.
During the press briefing, Sikorski was asked whether, in light of reports that some drones had entered Polish airspace from Belarus, Poland intended to take diplomatic steps against that country. “If these had been accidental violations, we would have expected them from Ukrainian territory,” Sikorski replied.
He assessed that Polish-Belarusian relations were poor, which in his opinion “results from what Belarus is doing.” He stressed that Belarus “imprisons Poles, including Andrzej Poczobut, also takes hostages, such as the recent Carmelite traveler, and above all, in cooperation with the Russian Federation, organizes military exercises with an aggressive scenario – ZAPAD.”
“I hope that President (Alexander) Lukashenko understands that enough is enough,” stated the Foreign Minister.