Yauheni Preiherman
On September 10, Poland shot down at least 19 Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that had violated its airspace. Afterward, Poland invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) founding treaty.
Belarus’s armed forces notified Poland and Lithuania about the incoming drones via existing military-to-military communication channels.
Minsk’s sharing of sensitive information with the Polish armed forces represents an effort from the Belarusian military in risk reduction and pragmatic dialogue with NATO countries, even in the face of deteriorating bilateral relations.
On September 10, Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk stated that the previous night at least 19 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) violated his country’s airspace (YouTube/@APT, September 10). The Polish authorities are confident that the drones were Russian and that the incursions happened intentionally. Based on those factors, Tusk concluded that the occurrence brought Poland closer to an open military conflict than at any time since World War II, while also emphasizing that Poland is “not at war” (Polskiego Radia, September 10).
Most reactions from Western politicians and media naturally focused on Polish assessments of the incursions and their implications for the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of which Poland is a member. Warsaw invoked Article 4 of NATO’s founding treaty, which launched formal consultations among its 32 member states as the “territorial integrity, political independence or security [of one of them] is threatened” (NATO, accessed September 14). On September 12, NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte announced that, in response to the incursions, the alliance was launching operation “Eastern Sentry” to bolster its posture along its eastern flank (NATO, September 12).
The international focus on Poland and NATO’s big-picture reactions is understandable, as the incident posed a serious challenge to NATO’s overall strategy of effectively deterring Russia. There appeared to be little coverage in the West, however, about the drones entering Polish airspace from both Belarus and Ukraine, a fact that has potentially long-term implications for the security of Poland and NATO. In his statement at the Sejm, the Polish Parliament, Tusk underlined that this incident was the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that drones entered Poland’s airspace from Belarus and Ukraine rather than just from Ukraine (YouTube/@APT, September 10). He argued that drones entering NATO airspace at the Belarusian border represented a major escalation that Warsaw and its allies need to counter. Crucially, Tusk failed to mention that Minsk did not silently watch the Russian drones fly over Belarus en route to Poland.
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