Europe’s war-party has been hard at work online trying to stir up some kind of “Article 5 response” (i.e. War) over Russia’s reckless drone incursion into Poland in the small hours of Wednesday. Those easily impressed and panicked by the night’s events seem oblivious of this kind of old-school Russian type of provocation. And they are clearly not familiar with the much worse shooting (and killing) incidents between the Soviet Union and NATO during the Cold War. As usual, since 2022 any such flare-ups are quickly seized upon by the radical pro-Ukraine lobby to try to bounce NATO into some kind of escalation against Russia. Instead, NATO needs to hold its nerve and avoid being dragged into Ukraine’s war.
The full facts of this operation are not yet entirely clear in all their details, but we know enough. Russia has been preparing to stage its annual large-scale Zapad military exercise in Belarus, next door to Poland. And on the night of 9th to 10th September, Russian forces unleashed another round of their usual drone and missile attacks on Ukraine. Of these, anywhere between seven and 20 Geran drones (Zelensky mentioned eight) appear to have been diverted through Poland.
Up to four of the Gerans appear to have been shot down by NATO quick reaction alert fighters – in what looks like a rather impressive multinational operation involving Polish, American, Dutch, Italian and Romanian planes – and most seem to have crashed of their own. One was allegedly found in a field some 300km inside Poland. A few Polish airports were closed as a precaution, and high alert levels and other standard readiness procedures were activated in the eastern regions of Poland as well as in Slovakia and Hungary.
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