Poland gathered its NATO allies for urgent talks on Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, after Russian drones flew into Polish airspace in an overnight attack on Ukraine.
Tusk denounced the “large-scale provocation”, saying Poland had identified 19 violations of its airspace and shot down at least three drones after scrambling aircraft alongside allies, adding that no one was harmed.
Russian drones and missiles have entered the airspace of NATO members including Poland several times during Russia’s three-and-a-half-year war, but a NATO country has never attempted to shoot them down.
Tusk said he had invoked NATO’s Article 4 under which any member can call urgent talks when it feels its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” are at risk only the eighth time the measure has ever been used.
The incursion came as Russia unleashed a barrage of strikes across Ukraine, including in the western city of Lviv, around 50 miles (80 kilometres) from the Polish border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on social media that the airspace violation was a “dangerous precedent” for Europe, saying it was “no accident”, and urged a strong response from Kyiv’s Western allies.
Poland’s interior ministry said that a house and a car had been damaged overnight, adding that seven drones and debris from an unknown projectile had so far been located.
The North Atlantic Council, NATO’s main political decision-making body, changed the format of its weekly meeting on Wednesday, holding it under Article 4 of the alliance treaty.
A cornerstone of the Western military alliance is the principle that an attack on any member is deemed an attack on all.
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