{"id":414301,"date":"2025-09-10T23:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/414301\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T23:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:02:12","slug":"germanys-merz-says-putin-deliberately-targeted-nato-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/414301\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Merz says Putin deliberately targeted NATO \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merz said he shared the assessment of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk that the drone incursion was a deliberate act.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Russian government&#8217;s claim that this was, so to speak, a coincidence or an accident is not credible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In the early hours of Wednesday, Poland, with help from Dutch fighter jets, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/poland-scrambles-fighters-shoots-down-russian-drones-after-airspace-violations-ukraine-warning\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shot down a wave of Russian drones<\/a> in what appears to have been a move by Russian President Vladimir Putin to test NATO\u2019s defenses. German Patriot air defense systems and an Italian\u00a0surveillance aircraft were also used to shoot down the drones, according to Mark Rutte, NATO\u2019s secretary general.<\/p>\n<p>Russia\u2019s defense ministry said that no targets had been marked for destruction in Poland, but did not specifically deny that Russian drones crossed the border. The deputy defense minister of Belarus, a dictatorship allied with Moscow, said the drones had \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/live\/c2enwk1l9e1t?post=asset%3A4427260f-caf5-4e47-94d4-98c9cc631f39#post\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">lost their way<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that the some 19 drones that entered Polish airspace were apparently sent from Belarusian territory. The drones were identical to the Shahed-type, which Russian forces frequently use to attack Ukraine, according to Pistorius. &#8220;These drones were clearly deliberately set on this course,\u201d he told the German parliament.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2221386394-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7142451\"  \/>Friedrich Merz said the incursion showed NATO\u2019s air defenses in Europe must be significantly improved. | Beata Zawrzel\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Merz said the incursion showed NATO\u2019s air defenses in Europe must be significantly improved.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;First of all, I would like to note that European air defense, NATO air defense, worked, but of course not as well as it should have in order to prevent such a large number of drones from entering Polish airspace early enough,\u201d he said. \u201cThis will trigger discussions within NATO. It will also trigger discussions within the European Union.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Merz added: \u201cWe are and will remain determined to significantly increase the defense readiness and defense capabilities of the European part of NATO.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merz said he shared the assessment of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk that the drone incursion was a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2594,18992,23404,768,7668,473,5898,2595,2000,299,5187,1945,660,770,332,811,657,333,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-414301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-air-defense","9":"tag-airspace","10":"tag-ammunition","11":"tag-borders","12":"tag-boris-pistorius","13":"tag-defense","14":"tag-donald-tusk","15":"tag-drones","16":"tag-eu","17":"tag-europe","18":"tag-european","19":"tag-friedrich-merz","20":"tag-kremlin","21":"tag-poland","22":"tag-russia","23":"tag-security","24":"tag-ukraine","25":"tag-vladimir-putin","26":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115182498264866373","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}