Poland’s prime minister says Russia is preparing ‘accidental’ drone and missile strikes on NATO countries that support Ukraine

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament that Russia is planning “hybrid” strikes using missiles and drones against countries that support Ukraine.

Tusk cited intelligence assessments, the Reuters news agency reports. “There is a real risk that drones or other types of missiles may fly into the territory of one or more NATO countries on the eastern flank, even cause destruction,” he said.

“These potential strikes would be quote-unquote ‘accidental’ in nature, ‌intended to paralyze or at least weaken the resolve of NATO states to invoke the relevant NATO provisions in the event of aggression against a member country,” Tusk said.

According to Tusk, these Russian attacks could coincide with “political changes in certain European countries granting power […] to those who, increasingly invoking ​noble slogans of peace, pacifism and needless casualties, will call for peace,” but which in fact call for ”​the total capitulation of Ukraine.”

Drones have repeatedly entered the airspace of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia in recent months. Authorities in those countries said the drones were Ukrainian and had strayed into their airspace because of Russian electronic warfare.

NATO fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace overnight on September 15, the first time a drone has been destroyed in the country’s history. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda later said the drone was Russian.

Russian forces also used drones to attack a gas station near the Yahodyn border crossing on the Polish–Ukrainian border and a passenger train on the Kyiv–Warsaw railway line overnight on September 13. Another train carrying Western politicians returning from Ukraine was traveling nearby when the drone struck. Tusk said the incident showed that “escalation by the Russian Federation is becoming a fact, and examples of it are getting closer and closer to our border.”