A US politician has released a scathing statement on Russia's recent violation of Polish airspace with drones by calling it an 'act of war'.
Last night, planes from Poland and other NATO forces were scrambled to shoot down Russian drones which had violated the country's airspace, with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying that 19 drone incursions were recorded by the military.
He added that a number of those drones flew into Poland via Belarus, which is a puppet state of Russia and has allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine through it, while Belarusian ministers have claimed the drones 'lost their way' after their navigation systems were jammed.
Tusk said that the Russian drones, which were a 'direct threat', were shot down and he was 'in constant communication with the secretary general of NATO and our allies'.
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It is the first time during the Russian invasion of Ukraine that NATO forces have come into contact with Russian military material.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that this incursion into Poland set 'an extremely dangerous precedent for Europe', saying 'a strong response is needed'.
He said: "The Russians must feel the consequences. Russia must feel that the war cannot be expanded and will have to be ended. The pause in sanctions has gone on far too long."
An even stronger statement was issued by US politician Joe Wilson, a member of the Republican party led by Donald Trump, as he declared that the incursion by Russia was an 'act of war'.
He said: "Russia is attacking NATO ally Poland with Iranian shahed drones less than a week after President Trump hosted President Nawrocki at the White House.
"This is an act of war, and we are grateful to NATO allies for their swift response to war criminal Putin’s continued unprovoked aggression against free and productive nations."
Wilson called on Trump to impose 'mandatory sanctions that will bankrupt the Russian war machine and arm Ukraine with weapons capable of striking Russia' and accused Vladimir Putin of moving beyond 'bombing mothers and babies' and 'testing our resolve in NATO territory'.
Those are strong words and the rest of the international community does not appear to be quite there yet.
Tusk has requested to invoke NATO's Article 4, telling his parliament: "There is no doubt that this provocation is incomparably more dangerous from Poland’s point of view than the previous ones."
He also said this was 'a confrontation that Russia has declared against the entire free world'.
Article 4 allows a NATO member state to raise an issue it has with the North Atlantic Council, NATO's decision making body, and it has only been done seven times since the alliance was formed.
Five of those invocations have come from Turkey, with them first triggering Article 4 in 2003, while Poland triggered it in 2014 following Russian aggression towards Ukraine.
Article 4 was most recently triggered in 2022 following Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine, with Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia all asking for consultation.
To be clear, Article 4 is a NATO member state calling for a discussion in the face of a threat facing them, it is not an attempt to call other countries into a conflict which is covered by Article 5, which has only ever been invoked once by the US.
The BBC reports that Russia's temporary chargé d'affaires in Poland has rejected the idea that Russian drones entered Polish airspace.
Andrey Ordash told Russian state media: "We believe that the claims are groundless. There has been no evidence that these drones are of Russian provenance."
Topics: Russia, US News, Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, World News, NATO
Joe Harker