The U.K. Foreign Office summoned Russian Ambassador to the U.K. Andrey Kelin yesterday, to complain about alleged Russian drones violating Polish airspace. Russia’s Embassy commented, as TASS reported: “On Sept. 15, the ambassador was invited to the Foreign Office, where a formal protest was lodged against him regarding the presence of drones in Polish airspace. The British were asked if they had any evidence that the drones had been launched by the Russian military. They did not provide any. We also asked them to clarify the motives for sending drones towards Poland. Obviously, Russia could not have been interested in this….
“On the contrary, the Kiev leadership has many reasons and opportunities to carry out a false flag operation. It is not difficult to list them. No counterarguments have been presented to us,” the embassy noted. “We reiterate that Russia has no interest in escalating tensions in relations with Poland or NATO. On the contrary, Kiev and its sponsors, who have repeatedly carried out provocations for this purpose, are interested in further inflating militaristic, anti-Russian hysteria. Therefore, it is clear who is at fault.”
Meanwhile, the drone game goes on. NATO announced yesterday that on Sept. 13, the alliance scrambled a French Rafale fighter jet—one of three deployed in Poland for Operation Eastern Sentry—in response to “another potential threat from Russian drones.” The supposed threat was not otherwise defined. “The response was fast, and the alert was over quickly,” said U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
Also yesterday, the Romanian Defense Ministry claimed that it had scrambled an F-16 to chase a Russian drone that it said had entered Romanian airspace from Ukraine, but that it had re-entered Ukraine airspace before it could be intercepted, reported Reuters.
