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It comes as the UK sent fighter jets to Poland in a warning to Putin to stay out of Nato territory after repeated incursions
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Czech president Petr Pavel has said Nato forces must shoot down Russian jets if necessary, demanding a more forceful response to Moscow’s repeated violations of the alliance’s airspace.
“Russia will realise very quickly that they have made a mistake and crossed the acceptable boundaries,” Mr Pavel said according to the Czech News Agency.
“Unfortunately, this is teetering on the edge of conflict, but giving in to evil is simply not an option.”
It came after the UK sent fighter jets to Poland on Friday night in a clear warning to Vladimir Putin that Western nations will not tolerate Russia’s repeated incursions.
The RAF Typhoons took part in a Nato operation to bolster European security after Russia provoked global outrage when its jets flew into Estonian airspace on Friday.
Polish fighter jets were scrambled in the early hours of Saturday to protect the Nato-member country’s airspace during a major Russian air attack across Ukraine.
Donald Trump warned of “big trouble” as he grows increasingly dismayed by Russia’s provocations, which also includes drone and fighter jet incursions into Poland and Romania.
Vietnam was crowned the winner of the Russian-hosted Intervision song contest in the early hours of Sunday morning, a competition backed by president Vladimir Putin and conceived as a geopolitical and socially conservative rival to Eurovision.
Putin in February ordered the revival of Intervision, a Soviet-era regional musical contest based on “traditional family values” after Moscow was excluded from the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022 following Putin’s decision to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.
Kyiv has called the event “an instrument of hostile propaganda”.
Shown live on Russian TV and broadcast across parts of Asia, Africa, South America and Europe, Intervision was held at an arena outside Moscow with singers hailing from more than 20 countries accounting for 4 billion people, half the world’s population, including China, India and Brazil.
Vietnam’s Duc Phuc, whose song was based on a folktale about a king famous for repelling an enemy army, was crowned the strongest act by a jury made up of participating countries.
One woman was killed in Russia’s Belgorod region when a Ukrainian shell hit a house, the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said in a post on Telegram on Sunday.
Belgorod region has come under regular attack from Kyiv’s forces since Russia ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Czech president Petr Pavel has called on Nato forces to take a far stronger stance against Russia’s repeated incursions into the airspace of member states.
Nato forces must be ready to shoot down Russian jets if necessary, he said/
“Russia will realize very quickly that they have made a mistake and crossed the acceptable boundaries,” Mr Pavel said according to the Czech News Agency.
“Unfortunately, this is teetering on the edge of conflict, but giving in to evil is simply not an option.”
Donald Trump has warned that a third Russian incursion into Nato airspace, in which three fighter jet spent 12 minutes in Estonian airspace, could spell “big trouble” for Moscow.
It is the latest in a series of provocations by the Russian military, which has repeatedly sent drones into Poland and Romania as Moscow argues that Nato is already “fighting against Russia”.
“Nato is providing direct and indirect support to the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “It can be said with absolute certainty that Nato is fighting against Russia.”
Yet as Russia stages incursions into Nato territory and organises major drills with Belarus, experts say that Vladimir Putin is testing Nato’s response through its more aggressive movements past Ukrainian borders.
Read the full report:
NATO Article 4 has now been triggered nine times in the past 75 years, two of which have occurred in less than two weeks.
The organisation has called a meeting in Estonia early next week to discuss Russia’s incursion into Estonia’s airspace on Friday. The meeting comes after Estonia requested consultations under Article 4 of the Washington Treaty.
Article 4 states that members of NATO can bring an issue forward for the North Atlantic Council, the organisation’s principal political decision-making body, to consult. The parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territory, political independence or security of any of them is threatened.
Since NATO was established in 1949, Article 4 has been invoked nine times, including today’s request. On 10 September, it was triggered by Poland after Polish forces shot down 19 drones over its airspace.
Article 5 states that “the Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”
If members decided that Russia had attacked the territory of a member state, then Article 5 would be invoked and members would take the action they deemed necessary.
Article 5 is the cornerstone of the North Atlantic Treaty, NATO’s founding treaty. When the treaty was created in 1949, its key aim was to counter the Soviet Union if it sought to extend its control of Eastern Europe.
Republican and Democratic senators are seeking a bill which would target Russia’s “shadow fleet”.
The “Sanctioning Harbors and Dodgers of Western Sanctions,” or SHADOW Fleets Act, would provide a list of indicators the US could use to identify vessels supporting the fleet, making it easier to sanction them sooner.
It would also put in place strict sanctions liability for any ship that engages in a transfer with a sanctioned Russian vessel.
US Senator Jim Risch said: “Putin will use every trick in the book to evade U.S. sanctions, and the U.S. is cracking down on this illicit shadow fleet of ships that he uses to fund his war.
“These ships and the oil sales they facilitate directly threaten American and European security, and will be stopped.”
Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine and its partners have laid the groundwork for long-term security guarantees and that he hopes to gauge how close they are to finalizing such commitments during next week’s meetings in New York.
He said European nations are prepared to move forward with a framework if the United States remains closely engaged. He noted that discussions have taken place at multiple levels, including among military leadership and general staffs from both Europe and the US.
“I would like to receive signals for myself on how close we are to understanding that the security guarantees from all partners will be the kind we need,” Mr Zelensky said.
He said sanctions against Russia must remain on the table if peace efforts stall, and that he plans to press the issue in talks with Trump.
“If the war continues and there is no movement toward peace, we expect sanctions,” he said, adding that Trump is looking for strong steps from Europe.
UK officials have joined leaders across Europe in condemning Russia’s incursion into Nato airspace on Friday night.
Defence Secretary John Healey said: “This is yet another edition of the Putin playbook.
“Putin’s aggression only serves to strengthen the unity of NATO and our resolve to stand with Ukraine.”
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the UK was standing in solidarity with its Estonian allies, calling the incursion “reckless”
“We must continue to increase pressure on Putin, including driving forward the important new economic sanctions announced by the UK & EU in recent days,” she said.
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