Poland briefly closes airspace as NATO increases presence in the Baltic Sea

Denmark reports caller drone incursions, portion neighbouring Norway says it is investigating 2 drone sightings.

Poland has concisely closed portion of its airspace southeast of superior Warsaw, citing “unplanned subject activity”, arsenic Russia launches a caller question of strikes against Ukraine.

The deployment connected Sunday of Polish and allied craft successful the country’s airspace comes arsenic the transatlantic information bloc NATO announced that it is upgrading its ngo successful the Baltic Sea successful effect to drone incursions successful Denmark and reported drone sightings successful Norway.

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The latest developments item the accrued hostility successful the region, arsenic diplomatic efforts to resoluteness the ongoing warfare betwixt Russia and Ukraine falter, raising fears of a wider struggle spilling into Europe.

In the latest incident, the Polish equipped forces said it scrambled craft to guarantee the information of its airspace aft Russia launched strikes connected Ukraine.

It described the actions arsenic preventive and aimed astatine securing airspace and protecting citizens.

The closure of the airspace successful the cities of Lublin and Rzeszow was expected to past until aboriginal morning.

According to Ukraine’s aerial force, aerial raid alerts were successful effect crossed the state arsenic of 03:00 GMT connected Sunday successful effect to Russian strikes.

Earlier this month, Polish and NATO forces intercepted Russian drones which entered Poland’s airspace, marking their archetypal nonstop subject engagement with Moscow since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began successful 2022.

Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov warned NATO and the European Union that “any aggression against my state volition beryllium met with a decisive response”.

Speaking astatine the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) successful New York connected Saturday, Lavrov insisted that Moscow had nary plans to onslaught the West, but that it was prepared to enactment if provoked.

On Saturday, NATO announced that it was upgrading its ngo successful the Baltic Sea with an air-defence frigate and different assets, including “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms” successful effect to a drawstring of incidents successful Denmark.

According to Denmark, unidentified drones were observed adjacent subject installations overnight connected Saturday.

Late connected Monday, Copenhagen airport, the Nordic region’s busiest, was besides forced to adjacent for respective hours arsenic respective ample drones were seen successful its airspace. Five smaller Danish airports, some civilian and military, were besides unopen temporarily successful the pursuing days.

Danish authorities person called the incursions hybrid attacks, and Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said earlier this week it was “the astir superior onslaught connected Danish captious infrastructure to date”.

In neighbouring Norway, constabulary said connected Saturday they were investigating imaginable drone sightings adjacent the country’s Oerland aerial unit basal successful the cardinal region, the main basal for Norway’s F-35 jets.

“The guards astatine the basal made respective observations extracurricular the base’s perimeter aboriginal connected Saturday,” a spokesperson astatine the Norwegian equipped forces’ associated office told the Reuters quality agency.

In a abstracted connection to the AFP quality agency, Brynjar Stordal said, “The sightings are astir apt drones but the probe volition find retired what it was.”

“At slightest 2 drones” flew successful a restricted country adjacent the basal “for astir an hour” earlier disappearing, helium said.

In Germany, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said connected Saturday that a drone “swarm” was spotted connected Friday implicit the bluish authorities of Schleswig-Holstein, which borders Denmark.

He said helium wants to revise aerial information laws to let the equipped forces to sprout down drones.

On Friday, defence ministers from astir 10 EU nations announced that they privation to prioritise gathering a alleged “drone wall” to unafraid their borders.

In response, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the measures would pb to “an summation successful subject and governmental tensions connected our continent”, according to authorities quality bureau RIA Novosti.

The ministry added that the plans amounted to “personal ambitions and governmental games of the EU’s ruling elites”.