Russia’s drones: Trump speculates about an “oversight”

U.S. President Donald Trump has sparked the penetration of Russian drones into Polish airspace. He did not rule out Moscow: “It could have been a mistake,” Trump said to journalists on Thursday.

Since taking office in January, Trump has been accused of showing the attacker Russia too much for and can be demonstrated by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. After checking the incident, it is unlikely that the drones are really an accident. According to information from NATO circles, at least one of the flight robots flew towards the distribution center for the Ukraine military aid at the Polish Airport Rzeszow.

In the night of Wednesday, at least 19 Russian drones had penetrated hundreds of kilometers far into the airspace of the EU and NATO country Poland. At least three of them were shot down. Warsaw and other NATO countries, including Germany, condemned the incidents as a targeted provocation against the entire western military alliance.

In Poland, the penetration of the Russian drones into the NATO area is not only seen as an act of military aggression, but above all as part of Moscow’s psychological warfare. The country borders on Ukraine and follows the war with great concern in its immediate neighborhood. Since the beginning of the war, Poland and the NATO countries in the Baltic States have repeatedly reported injuries to their airspace by Russian drones. Now the Polish Air Force and other NATO allies in Poland have shot down Russian drones for the first time. As a result, the situation has worsened again.

Polen’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said “the attention of the whole world on this unprecedented attack by Russian drones on a Member State not only the UN, but also the European Union and NATO”, said Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. With 19 injuries to the Polish airspace by drones within seven hours, it could not be a coincidence. “This is a military and political test not only for Poland, but for the entire NATO,” said Sikorski.

In response to the incident, Germany announced that it would increase the monitoring of airspace over Poland. The Federal Ministry of Defense announced that the number of Eurofighter aircraft used would be doubled from two to four. Your commitment will also be extended by the end of December. The Bundeswehr is already in use with two Eurofighter fight jets on Poland stationed in Rostock-Laage.

Poland restricted air traffic on the eastern border of the country as a security measure, while France wants to provide three Rafale fighting jets for monitoring the NATO east border. In addition, the government in Warsaw applied for an urgency meeting of the UN Security Council because of the incident. However, Russia can block any decisions there because of its veto law.

Meanwhile, Russia and its ally Belarus are starting a strategic major maneuver on Friday. In Poland in particular, SAPAD 2025 (west 2025), which runs until September 16, is pursued with concern. The Bundeswehr assumes that around 13,000 soldiers in Belarus and another 30,000 in the Russian field will be involved in the maneuver.

The government in Warsaw had the border to Belarus closed for the duration of the military maneuver, and the airspace near the border is also closed. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs therefore accused the neighboring country “confrontational steps”, which served to “justify the further escalation of the tensions in the center of Europe”.

There are always joint military exercises by the two neighboring countries. In the EU and NATO, the consequences of the previous exercise SAPAD 2021 have remained in a bad memory: This used Russia at the time to move weapons and heavy equipment to prepare its attack on Ukraine in February 2022. The government in Belarus recently announced that it will reduce the scope of this year’s maneuver and to move it from the western border to the interior of the country in order to reduce tensions with the West.