Ukraine-Russia war live: Trump says ‘here we go’ in reaction to Russia violating Polish airspace

US president Donald Trump issued a statement on Truth Social following Russia’s incursion into Polish airspace.

Poland shot down suspected Russian drones in its airspace on Wednesday with the backing of aircraft from its Nato allies, the first time a member of the Western military alliance is known to have fired shots during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!,” he said.

Shortly after this post on Truth Social, Polish president Karol Nawrocki said he spoke to president Trump to “confirm allied unity” after Russia violated Polish airspace.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russia is testing the limits and reactions of the Nato alliance by calculated Russian drone attacks.

“Almost two dozen drones entered Poland, and it seems that less than half of the total number came from Ukraine. This was a calculated Russian activity. And we all saw the result, how difficult it was to counter,” Zelensky said in his nightly address.

The Russians are testing the limits of what is possible, the Ukrainian war-time president warned. “Testing reactions. Watching closely how Nato armed forces act – what they can do and what they cannot do yet,” he said.

Zelensky also accused Russia of humiliating Poland.

“Joint Russian–Belarusian exercises have now begun on Belarusian territory. This may well be part of their ‘training plan’, so to speak. We also see a disinformation campaign targeting both Poland and Ukraine. We see how the Russians are trying to humiliate Poland,” he said.

Russia is likely to have been working on an incursion of Polish airspace with a large number of drones since earlier this summer, a think tank has said.

“Russia may have been preparing for the September 9-10 incursion for months, further indicating that the incursion was not an accident or the result of Ukrainian EW interference,” the Institute for the Study of War said, citing the drones used – Gerbera decoy drones.

According to a Polish military official, at least some of the Russian drones in Polish airspace were Gerbera drones.

The Russian Gerbera drone is a decoy drone designed to mimic Shahed –and Geran-type drones in order to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences, the ISW said.

“Ukrainian electronic and radio warfare expert Serhiy ‘Flash’ Beskrestnov also reported that he has documented Russian Shahed-type drones with Polish SIM cards recently,” the ISW said.

It also pointed to an instance from July when the Ukrainian military had recovered Russian drones with Polish and Lithuanian SIM cards and that these SIM cards could indicate Russian preparations to test strike corridors in Poland and Lithuania.

Donald Trump does not believe US should cut off Russia from the global economy as they have a “lot of oil” and “lot of gas”, vice president JD Vance has said.

Speaking to One America News Network, Vance said: “The president’s been very open with the Europeans and the Russians that he doesn’t see any reason why we should economically isolate Russia except for the continuation of the conflict.”

“Let’s be honest, whether you like or dislike Russia, whether you agree or disagree with their underlying arguments for the conflict, the simple fact is they’ve got a lot of oil,” Vance said, calling Russia a resource powerhouse.

“They’ve got a lot of gas. They’ve got a lot of mineral wealth.”

Once a settlement is reached, Vance said Washington could have “a very productive economic relationship” with both Kyiv and Moscow.

Poland called an emergency Nato council meeting after shooting down at least four Russian drones that entered its airspace in the most dangerous test of the alliance’s resolve in decades.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said that Poland was closer to war than at any time since the Second World War and his government described the drones as “an act of aggression that posed a real threat to the safety of our civilians”.

Russian drones deep into Polish airspace may be an accident, but it is a risk that Vladimir Putin is happy to take given the level of impunity Russia has faced for its actions, writes World Affairs Editor Sam Kiley:

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk told the country’s parliament that the Russian drone incident came under Article 4 of the treaty that founded the alliance in 1949 in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Article 4, when raised by a Nato nation facing any threat, can put urgent matters on the agenda for an alliance meeting.

Article 4, the shortest of the Nato treaty’s 14 articles, states that: “The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”

Bob Deen, an analyst at the Clingendael think tank in The Hague, said the article is designed to promote better coordination and understanding within the alliance on external threats.

“It gives all allies the opportunity to urgently put certain threats or developments on the agenda of the North Atlantic Council,” he said.

“Article 4 gets invoked relatively rarely but increasingly in recent years; Turkey alone invoked it five times between 2003-2020 in the context of Syria and Iraq,” said Deen.

He pointed out that eight allies have invoked it in 2022 shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Poland triggered it once in 2014 after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

Britain has pledged to mass produce Ukrainian-designed interceptor drones to help Ukraine counter Russian missiles and one-way attack drones.

The joint project had a target to produce thousands of drones per month, which would each cost less than 10 per cent to make compared to the targets they were designed to intercept, the government said in a statement.

In June, prime minister Keir Starmer and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky announced a defence co-production initiative.

The British government, which had previously committed to increasing drone deliveries to Ukraine tenfold by April 2026, has pledged £4.5bn ($6.10bn) in military support to Ukraine this year, its largest commitment to date.