WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk pledged Thursday to push ahead with a “great modernization program” for his country’s military, a day after Russian drones crossed into Poland and amplified international tensions around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including what the Kremlin’s future territorial ambitions might be.
European officials described Wednesday’s incursion, which occurred during a wave of recent unrelenting Russian strikes on Ukraine, as a deliberate provocation, forcing the NATO alliance to confront a potential threat in its airspace for the first time.
It deepened longstanding fears that the three-year war between Poland’s neighbors could precipitate a wider conflict. U.S.-led efforts to steer Moscow and Kyiv toward a peace settlement have so far failed to get traction.
The Polish Air Navigation Agency announced Thursday morning that Poland was introducing air traffic restrictions in the eastern part of the country. It said the step was taken at the request of the Polish army for national security reasons but did not elaborate.
Poland said some of the drones that entered its airspace Wednesday came from Belarus, where Russian and local troops have begun gathering for war games scheduled to start Friday. Poland is closing its border with Belarus at midnight Thursday, a planned move also associated with the military exercises.
Underscoring the global repercussions of the war, China on Thursday urged Poland to keep open a section of the Belarus border for a China-EU freight track that crosses it. The rail line is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to boost trade with other countries.
Tusk addressed Polish troops at an air base in the central city of Lask, praising their quick action and that of NATO allied forces from the Netherlands that responded to the multiple Russian drone incursions.
The response also brought questions, however, about the wisdom of using advanced fighter jets to shoot down relatively cheap drones.
Poland expects to receive its first F-35 fighter jets from the United States next year, he said. It will be the first delivery of some of the 32 aircraft expected by 2030 as part of a support package finalized five years ago, Tusk said.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki also visited a military air base Thursday, striking a defiant tone in a statement that said Poland “doesn’t get scared by Russian drones.”
Nawrocki described the incursion as "an attempt to test our abilities, the ability to react.” He was visiting a base in Poznan-Krzesiny, in western Poland.
The Kremlin said it had nothing to add to a Wednesday statement by Russia’s Defense Ministry, which insisted that Russian forces had not targeted Poland and that it was open to discuss the incident with Polish officials.
It also dismissed talk of the incursion being a provocation. “The statements we hear from Warsaw: well, they’re nothing new. This rhetoric is typical of almost all European capitals,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
The European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, concluded that Putin is testing Europe’s resolve as it endeavors to address the threat from Moscow while the United States demands it shoulder more of the financial burden.
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“Inconsistency between words and deeds seem to have eroded Europe’s credibility in Russia’s eyes,” it said in an analysis published Friday.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered an ambiguous initial response to Russia’s drone incursion. “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” Trump posted on social media.
Trump told Nawrocki, the Polish president, in the White House last week that the U.S. will maintain a robust military presence.
Several European leaders said they believed the incursion amounted to an intentional expansion of Russia’s assault against Ukraine.
“Russia’s war is escalating, not ending,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday. “What (Russian President Vladimir) Putin wants to do is to test us. What happened in Poland is a game changer,” she said, adding that it should result in stronger sanctions.
Polish airspace has been violated many times since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but never on this scale in Poland or anywhere else in NATO territory.
Russian drone attacks on civilian areas are daily occurrences in Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has successfully developed drones to combat the attacks, called interceptors. The war has spurred fast-track development of high-tech drone technology.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal and his British counterpart John Healey signed an agreement for the United Kingdom to produce Ukrainian interceptor drones, Shmyhal said Thursday on Telegram, as other countries strive to modernize their militaries.
The Ukrainian air force said Thursday its forces intercepted 62 out of 66 Russian strike and decoy drones in the country’s airspace overnight.
In the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, Russian drones and debris from those intercepted damaged an educational facility, apartment blocks and the landmark Holy Resurrection Cathedral, regional head Oleh Hryhorov wrote in Telegram.
Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, Ken Moritsugu in Beijing and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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