Poland said early Wednesday that multiple Russian drones entered and were shot down over its territory with help from NATO allies, describing the incident as an "act of aggression" carried out during a wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine. Several European leaders said they believed Russia was intentionally escalating the war, and NATO was discussing the incident in a meeting. It came three days after Russia's largest aerial attack on Ukraine since the war began, an attack that for the first time hit a key government building in Kyiv, per the AP. "Russia's war is escalating, not ending," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. "Last night in Poland we saw the most serious European airspace violation by Russia since the war began, and indications suggest it was intentional, not accidental."
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there'd been 19 intrusions into Polish airspace overnight, with a "large proportion" of the drones coming from Belarus, per CNN. Both Polish and Dutch warplanes reportedly helped take down the drones. Tusk said that the incident was the closest Poland had been to open conflict since World War II. "I have no reason to claim we're on the brink of war, but a line has been crossed, and it's incomparably more dangerous than before," Tusk said, per Reuters.
The AP notes that "Polish airspace has been violated multiple times since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but there has been nothing on this scale either in Poland or in any other Western nation along the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union." Tusk says he has asked NATO to open discussions under Article 4 of its treaty, and NATO members are sticking by Poland's side. "This is the first time NATO planes have engaged potential threats in Allied airspace," said Col. Martin O'Donnell of NATO's Supreme Allied Powers Europe.