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Poland has moved 40,000 troops to border amid joint Russia-Belarus drills
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Poland has rejected Donald Trump’s speculation that Russian drones breaching Polish airspace might have been “a mistake”.
Talking to reporters yesterday, Trump said the incursion could have been unintentional while adding: “I’m not happy about anything to do with the whole situation.”
Poland’s foreign minister shot back at him on X, and wrote: “No, that wasn’t a mistake”.
Polish air defences and Nato aircraft sprung into action on Wednesday after 19 objects intruded Polish airspace including drones entering from Belarus, said prime minister Donald Tusk. There have been no injury reports and Moscow has so far denied responsibility for the incident.
Poland has said it is deploying around 40,000 soldiers to its borders with Belarus and Russia where the two nations are set to hold a military drill starting today.
As European and Nato countries rally to Poland’s defence, the US has vowed that it will help defend Nato territory following the incursion.
The US would defend “every inch of Nato territory”, Washington’s ambassador to Nato Matthew Whitaker said.
We earlier brought you the news that the UK has launched a new package of sanctions on Russia.
Here’s a little more detail on what the sanctions include.
Earlier, we brought you the news that Prince Harry is making a surprise trip to Kyiv today on the invitation of the Ukrainian government.
The prince is arriving with a team from his Invictus Games Foundation to detail his charity’s plans to help rehabilitate wounded soldiers, the Guardian newspaper reported.
It is the second visit Harry, the younger son of Britain’s King Charles, has made to Ukraine this year, after he visited a centre for wounded military personnel in Lviv in April.
He was invited to the capital by the Ukrainian government, he said, and received permission from the British government and his wife before travelling.
The trip comes at the end of Harry’s four-day visit to Britain from his home in California, where he met his father King Charles for the first time in 18 months.
Harry served for 10 years in the British Army before setting up the Invictus Games Foundation, a charity which runs an international sporting event for military personnel wounded in action.
Britain announced a new package of Russia-related sanctions on Friday, including 70 new specifications and 30 new designations, a government statement said.
We’re working to bring you more on this.
Russia’s drone incursion into Polish airspace on Wednesday is unacceptable, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday.
Hungary has shown solidarity with Poland, a country that was its “historic ally”, he said.
“Despite the current political skirmishes, the Poles are our friends,” Mr Orban said. “So we had said about the incursion of Russian drones into Polish territory right away that it was unacceptable.”
Mr Orban is one of a small number of outliers in Europe who typically hold a far softer stance towards Moscow.
Ukraine’s foreign minister welcomed his Polish counterpart in Kyiv ahead of talks on shared security, EU and NATO accession and pressure on Moscow on Friday.
“Against the backdrop of Russia’s escalation of terror against Ukraine and provocations against Poland, we stand firmly together,” Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
Russian and Belarus kickstarted a major joint military exercise involving drills in both countries and in the Baltic and Barents seas, the Russian defence ministry said.
The “Zapad-2025” exercise – a show of force by Russia and its close ally – is taking place at an exceptionally tense moment in the Russia-Ukraine war, two days after Poland shot down suspected Russian drones over its airspace.
The exercise was scheduled well before the drone incident took place.
“The objectives of the drills are to improve the skills of commanders and staffs, the level of co-operation and field training of regional and coalition groupings of troops,” the defence ministry said on Telegram.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the drills, including near the Polish border, were not aimed against any other country.
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday he had asked Nato to open consultations under Article 4.
It comes after Polish forces shot down 19 drones over its airspace, marking the first known instance of a Nato member firing shots in the ongoing conflict.
Tusk confirmed the action on Wednesday, describing it as a “large-scale provocation” by Russia and stating he had asked Nato to open consultations under Article 4 of the alliance’s treaty.
The drones were intercepted during a significant Russian air attack on Ukraine.
Read more about Article 4 of Nato here:
Prince Harry is visiting Kyiv in a surprise trip today on invitation from the Ukrainian government.
The Duke of Sussex said he and his organisation wish to do “everything possible” to assist thousands of military personnel who have been injured in the Ukraine war.
“We cannot stop the war but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process,” he told The Guardian on an overnight train to Ukraine.
Harry said that he wants to “continue to humanise the people involved in this war and what they are going through”.
“We have to keep it in the forefront of people’s minds. I hope this trip will help to bring it home to people because it’s easy to become desensitised to what has been going on,” he said.
Prince Harry and his team from the Invictus Games Foundation are set to detail new initiatives to support the rehabilitation of the injured service personnel on their visit to Kyiv, following this with providing help to the other areas of Ukraine.
Poland shot down suspected Russian drones in its airspace on Wednesday with the backing of aircraft from its Nato allies, the first time a member of the Western military alliance is known to have fired shots during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk told parliament it was “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two,” though he also said he had “no reason to believe we’re on the brink of war.”
The incursion was conducted at least in part with Gerbera drones, according to a Polish army official. It is a cheap long-range drone that Ukrainian intelligence says is assembled from kits supplied by Chinese manufacturer Skywalker Technology at Russia’s Yelabuga facility.
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