NATO allies shot down three Russian drones that illegally entered Polish air space on Wednesday, in what officials tell Military Times was the first time in the alliance\u2019s history that its planes engaged potential threats in allied airspace.<\/p>\n
A senior Army official told reporters on Wednesday that eight other Russian drones crashed after entering Poland. There were no injuries from the debris.<\/p>\n
The incursion prompted a \u201cmulti-layered response\u201d from NATO allies, which placed German Patriots in Poland on alert and launched an Italian airborne early warning plane and an aerial refueler from NATO\u2019s Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft fleet, according to a senior defense official.<\/p>\n
Poland\u2019s Operational Command posted a statement on X that Russian \u201cdrone-type objects\u201d were struck down after they \u201crepeatedly violated\u201d Polish airspace early Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Poland is a member of the NATO alliance and home to thousands of U.S. forces.<\/p>\n
Following Russia\u2019s illegal annexation of Ukraine\u2019s Crimea peninsula in 2014, NATO enhanced its air policing operations in Poland with additional aircraft deployments to further ensure the integrity of NATO airspace on the alliance\u2019s eastern flank. <\/p>\n
NATO also has deployed additional aircraft to the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Romania.<\/p>\n
Russia on Sunday launched the largest aerial attack on Ukraine since it began its invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s assault on Sunday involved more than 800 drones and decoys. <\/p>\n
At least four people were killed in drone strikes that hit apartment buildings, including a mother and her infant. The main government building was also hit in the attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NATO allies shot down three Russian drones that illegally entered Polish air space on Wednesday, in what officials…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[5606,5607,5602,31239,1824,2199,2301,2821,128318,770,2046,332,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-416972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-circulated-defense-news","9":"tag-defense-news","10":"tag-dn-dnr","11":"tag-drone","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-italy","14":"tag-moscow","15":"tag-nato","16":"tag-patriot-battery","17":"tag-poland","18":"tag-putin","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115188203736703530","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416972","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=416972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}