NATO reacts alarmed
Russian drones make Poland and Romanians nervous
Russia’s airspace injuries put the defense strategy of Eastern Europeans to the test. There you start from targeted provocations. The US government speaks of a “dangerous” incident.
After the shooting of Russian drones in Poland, there were further incidents in Romania on Saturday. Russia is suspected of having specifically steered the drones used in the border regions in the border regions in the NATO area or near it. As the Polish army’s leadership command announced, fighter jets rose in the afternoon because of the assumed danger of a Russian drone attack on regions in the neighborhood of Ukraine. The ground -based air defense systems were made very willing.
Romania’s army also saw a drone on Saturday in the Tulcea region of Tulcea on the Danube Delta near the Ukrainian border. Two F-16 fight jets rose from the Fetesti air force base to an observation mission. According to the German Press Agency in Romania, NATO also alerted two German Eurofighter, which are supposed to protect the airspace there.
Selenskyj does not believe in
The Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj has an escalation of the war in view of the recent incidents. The Russian military knew exactly where their drones fly, and no subordinate commanders would act independently, wrote Selenskyj on Telegram. “This is an obvious expansion of the war by Russia.” This procedure requires preventive acts of the West. “Do not wait for dozens of Shahed (drones) and ballistic rockets to finally make decisions,” Selenskyj appealed to the Europeans.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described NATO’s reaction as appropriate – and the penetration of Russian drones into the airspace of neighboring countries as “unacceptable, unfortunate and dangerous”. The flight robots were undoubtedly used on purpose. Now it has to be clarified whether they were also specifically controlled in the Polish area. “If this is the case, if the evidence leads us to the knowledge, then of course that would be a highly escalative campaign,” said Rubio. However, other explanations are also conceivable.
US President Donald Trump had previously said that the incident might have been an oversight of the Russians – an interpretation that vehemently contradicted other allies like Poland. This is also considered unlikely in military circles. The Polish government spoke of a “military and political test not only for Poland, but for the entire NATO”. The alliance started a new military operation to protect the eastern flank after the airspace injuries by Russia.
Majority fears Russian attack on NATO state
According to a survey, a majority of the Germans are concerned about an attack on a NATO state like Poland or Lithuania in the near future. According to the survey of the opinion research institute Insa on behalf of the “Bild am Sonntag”, 62 percent of the 1,002 respondents fear such an attack. 28 percent do not do this, 10 percent expressed themselves.
Tusk speaks of “preventive operation”
The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had announced on Saturday at X: “Due to the threat of Russian drones that operate above Ukraine near the Polish border, preventive surgery of the air forces began, both the Polish and ally.” According to the PAP agency, the airport in Lublin in the southeast of the country was temporarily closed for civil air traffic. After about two hours, the Polish army announced that the operation of the air forces and the increased willingness to alert had ended.
Such alarms in Poland and Romania have been more common in February 2022 since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. But on a Russian air raid on Ukraine on Wednesday night, a large number of drones in Poland and thus the NATO had flown, and the Polish Air Force and other NATO allies shot some of the missiles for the first time. Since then, Poland has received increased support from NATO allies.
Drone in Romania disappears from the radar
In Romania, the drone on Saturday did not overflowed inhabited areas and did not represent any danger, the Ministry of Defense said in Bucharest. The region is sparsely populated. Nevertheless, disaster protection warned the population of the risk of possibly falling objects from the air. The Romanian fighter jets had followed the drone about 20 kilometers to the Romanian Danube town of Chilia Veche, the ministry said. After that, the object had disappeared from the radar.
Since the beginning of the war, ruins of Russian drows on Romanian territory had fallen several times in the Danube Delta, mostly after Russian attacks on the ports on sight on the Ukrainian Danube bank. Every time Romania’s authorities and NATO said that there was no intention of Russia.
Ukraine attacks oil systems deep in Russia
According to the authorities, a refinery of the oil company Batschneft, according to the authorities, in the Russian sub -Republic of Baschkortostan on the Wolga rose in flames after a Ukrainian drone attack. According to Republic chief Radi Chabirow, the system was attacked by at least two drones that one had fallen onto the company premises.
Drone attacks on Russian oil systems are now an integral part of the Ukrainian defense strategy. On the one hand, this is intended to interrupt the military’s fuel supply itself, and on the other hand, Russia is to be used to take an important source of income for war financing.
What is new is that the attacks are now taking place during the day – and that is deep in the Russian hinterland. Baschkortostan is around 1,400 kilometers from the border to Ukraine. Another drone attack in the Perm area near the Ural Mountains became known later. Here the distance is even more than 1,500 kilometers.
dpa
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
