By Gergana Krasteva
Copyright metro
A French Air Force Dassault Rafale B fighter jet deployed at an unspecified location in the Polish airspace during an exercise as part of ‘Eastern Sentry’ Nato operation (Picture: AFP)
Russia has threatened war on Nato if the military alliance starts to shoot down drones over Ukraine.
Former Russian president and ally to Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, has today issues the warning after Volodymyr Zelensky criticised Nato for not intercepting a drone that flew over Romania en route to Ukraine over the weekend.
In a post on Telegram, the politician wrote: ‘Seriously, the implementation of the provocative idea of Kyiv and other idiots about creating a no-fly zone over Ukraine and the ability for Nato countries to shoot down our UAVs will mean only one thing – a war between Nato and Russia.’
This comes as Nato members Poland and Romania both scrambled fighter jets to respond to drones violating their skies on Saturday.
Multiple other politicians across Europe have also suggested that Western allies should consider intercepting drones and missiles over Ukraine.
Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski was one of them.
In a comment to German media, he said: ‘Technically, we, as Nato and the EU, would be capable of doing this, but it is not a decision that Poland can make alone – only together with our allies.’
Sikorski stressed that Nato should see Russia’s drone incursions in Poland and Romania as a ‘wake-up call to accelerate our defence preparations’.
Dmytro Chubenko of the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office examines the carbon fiber remains of a Russian-made, Iran-designed Shahed-136 drone, known as a Geran-2 (Picture: Getty)
He said: ‘Since Donald Trump’s first presidency, Europeans have doubled our defence spending.
‘In The Hague, we agreed to double it again. But you can’t defend against drones with gross domestic product alone; you have to spend the money wisely.
‘What is clear is that Ukraine is far ahead of us when it comes to drone defence.
‘It fights hundreds of drones at once almost every day. Neither Germany nor Poland has been able to do that yet.
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‘So we need to change our thinking: In this matter, we are not training the Ukrainians; they are training us. We can benefit from their experience now.’
Both the Polish and the Romanian governments have labelled the Russian drone incursions as ‘provocations’.
On Sunday, Romanian foreign minister Oana Toiu said that the Kremlin’s actions posed a ‘new challenge’ to Black Sea security.
She announced that Russia’s ambassador to Bucharest, Vladimir Lipaev, would be summoned to the ministry over Saturday’s airspace breach.
A map showing where drone debris were discovered in Poland last week (Picture: Metro)
After that meeting on Sunday evening, a ministry statement said Romania had ‘conveyed its strong protest against this unacceptable and irresponsible act, which constitutes a violation of (its) sovereignty.’
It added: ‘Such recurring incidents contribute to the escalation and amplification of threats to regional security.’
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