Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski,
said on Monday that NATO members had a duty to down aerial threats before they entered alliance airspace.
“I’m personally of the view that, when hostile missiles are on course of entering our airspace, it would be legitimate self-defense [to strike them] because once they do cross into our airspace, the risk of debris injuring someone is significant,” Sikorski told U.K. daily The Financial Times.
Sikorski’s comments followed the entry of a suspected Russian drone into Poland’s airspace last week.
Several Central European countries have had their airspace violated by missiles and drones since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022.
Poland has recorded
five breaches of its skies during the conflict, with two of its citizens killed in November 2022 in a strike near the Ukraine border believed to have been by a stray Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile. Incidents have also occurred in Croatia, Hungary, Moldova and Romania.
In addition, airspace violations by Russian aircraft have also been reported, perceived by NATO members as provocations by Moscow.
Following talks between the Polish and Lithuanian presidents in Warsaw on Wednesday, the two heads of state were asked about progress within NATO of discussions on the issue, in the context of recent Russian aerial barrages against Ukraine.
Lithuania’s Gitanas Nausėda said the matter was subject to ongoing discussions within the alliance, and that an important factor would be the precise determination of when a projectile had entered NATO territory.
“NATO countries have started talks on the subject,” Nausėda said. “Today we cannot say that discussion has concluded and that we have some specific results but our countries together with other states are initiating talks and want a decision taken first and foremost at the NATO level.”
Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, added that Warsaw had presented a proposal at an alliance meeting in Paris in February.
He said the idea put forward for consideration was for NATO forces to “neutralize” Russian missiles or drones over Ukraine if they were deemed to pose a security threat to the alliance.
Duda said the proposal had been well received by Ukraine, though other NATO members had differing opinions.
One opponent of the move is the alliance’s secretary general,
Jens Stoltenberg, who told a Ukrainian news service in July: “NATO will support Ukraine, and we have recently increased our support... But NATO’s policy remains unchanged – we will not participate in this conflict.”
However, Duda suggested the matter was still open.
“The problem is under discussion the whole time,” he said, adding that all scenarios involved threats being intercepted from NATO territory.
