The Polish armed forces scrambled fighter jets due to the threat of a Russian drone attack on neighbouring regions of Ukraine, the Polish military command said in Warsaw on Saturday.
Ground-based air defence systems were also put on high alert Saturday afternoon. Such measures are not unusual, but they are currently receiving particular attention due to the incident involving suspected Russian drones on Polish territory in recent days.
"Due to the threat of Russian drones operating over Ukraine near the Polish border, a preventive operation of the air forces, both Polish and allied, has begun," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X.
According to the Polish PAP news agency, the airport in Lublin was temporarily closed to civilian air traffic due to the military activity.
After about two hours, the Polish army announced that the air force operation and the increased alert status had been terminated.
The mayors of Swidnik and Chelm in the east of the country announced on social media that warning sirens had been sounded due to the threat from the air, PAP reported.
They called on people to remain calm. A government crisis centre also sent text messages to all mobile phones in five districts in the border area with Ukraine warning of the "danger of an attack from the air."
Following the recent intrusion of suspected Russian drones into Polish airspace, Poland is receiving increased support from NATO allies.
To this end, Operation Eastern Sentry has been launched. Poland has been flying fighter jets whenever there is a major attack on western Ukraine. Ukraine has been defending itself against an all-out Russian invasion since February 2022.
In the eastern Romanian region of Tulcea near the Ukrainian border, the Romanian military said it also spotted a drone on Saturday.
Two F-16 fighter jets from the Fetesti air base took off on an observation mission. According to dpa sources, NATO also raised the alarm and dispatched two German Eurofighters stationed in Romania for airspace protection.
The alert came in response to Russian attacks in the border area between Ukraine and Romania.
The Romanian Ministry of Defence reported that the drone did not fly over inhabited areas and posed no threat. The region is sparsely populated, but civil protection authorities nevertheless warned residents about the potential danger of falling debris.
The Romanian fighter jets tracked the drone for about 20 kilometres to the Romanian Danube town of Chilia Veche, before it disappeared from radar.
Since the start of Russia's war against Ukraine, debris from Russian drones has repeatedly fallen on Romanian territory in the Danube Delta, usually after strikes on Ukrainian ports across the river.
Each time, Romanian authorities and NATO have described these incidents as unintentional spillovers from Russian attacks.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of expanding the war.
The Russian military knew exactly where their drones were flying, and this was not the arbitrariness of any subordinate commanders, Zelensky wrote on Telegram. "This is an obvious expansion of the war by Russia."
Zelensky once again urged sanctions and the tariffs against Russia's trade that US President Donald Trump had brought into play.
But he said it was also necessary to establish a common security system.
"Don't wait for dozens of Shahed (drones) and ballistic missiles to finally make decisions," he said in a nod to the Europeans.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday called the incursion of Russian drones into the airspace of neighbouring countries an "unacceptable and unfortunate, and dangerous development."
He told reporters that the drones had been undoubtedly launched intentionally. It now needs to be determined whether they were also deliberately directed into Polish territory, he added. "If the evidence leads us there, then obviously that'll be a highly escalatory move," Rubio said. However, he noted that other explanations were also possible.
Trump had earlier suggested that the incident might have been a Russian mistake - a view strongly rejected by other allies, including Poland.
