A Russian fighter jet has violated Poland’s airspace amid fears the war in Ukraine may spread to other countries.
The Sukhoi Su-24MR “violated” airspace over Poland’s territorial waters for more that a minute on Tuesday, February 11, according to the country’s military.
It posted on X that the Russian jet strayed four miles into Polish airspace over the Gulf of Gdansk for 72 seconds on Tuesday afternoon.
The Sukhoi had taken off from Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, which shares a border with Poland.
Polish station, Polskie Radio, reported that the country’s airspace control authorities were in communication with their Russian counterparts.
The station said Russia acknowledged the violation and put it down to a failure in the jet’s navigation system.
Poland’s Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces confirmed to Newsweek: “On February 11, 2025 at 2.09 pm in the eastern part of the Bay of Gdansk there was a violation of the airspace over the territorial waters of the Republic of Poland by a Su-24MR aircraft of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”
Tensions remain high between Russia and NATO allies in Europe, with Poland’s accusation one of several to have been laid at Moscow’s door.
Romania and Latvia accused Russia of using military drones to violate their airspace in September last year while Sweden’s Armed Forces said a Russian aircraft violated its airspace in June 2024.
The Netherlands, Finland and Sweden intercepted Russian military aircraft over the Baltic Sea in December.
Since Russia widened its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, fallout from the war has spread beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Moscow has insisted on each occasion that the incidents resulted from accidents or malfunctions.
Despite the Kremlin’s assurances, countries on NATO’s eastern European flank have been boosting their defences while Ukraine pushes for membership of the 32 member alliance.
A major security conference is due to take place in Munich this week, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet US Vice President JD Vance.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday, February 12 that Ukraine’s ambition to join the NATO military alliance was not realistic.
He said: “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
Mr Hegseth added: “Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine.”
The US Defence Secretary insisted NATO should play no role in any future military mission to police the peace in Ukraine and any peacekeeping troops should not be covered by the part of NATO’s founding treaty which obliges all allies to come to the aid of any member under attack.
Article Five has been activated only once, when European allies and Canada used the collective security guarantee to help the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington DC.
Ukraine currently relies equally on Europe and the US for about 30% each of its defence needs. The rest is produced by Ukraine itself.
