A Nato-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine would be the best way to protect the alliance from incursions into its own member states' airspace, Poland's foreign minister has said.
Radoslaw Sikorski was speaking after 19 Russian drones violated his country’s airspace last week and another Russian drone entered Romanian airspace over the weekend.
“Protection for our population – for example, from falling debris – would naturally be greater if we could combat drones and other flying objects beyond our national territory,” foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.
Poland would be able to shoot down Russian drones over Ukrainian territory, he said, calling it an “advantageous” move.
His remarks came after the UK announced British fighter jets will join Nato air defence missions over Poland amid the threat from Russian drones.
The RAF Typhoons are expected to start flying the missions in the coming days, the government announced.
Prime minister Keir Starmer said: “Russia’s reckless behaviour is a direct threat to European security and a violation of international law.”
In pictures: Emergency services work at the site of a supermarket hit by a Russian drone strike in Kyiv
Belarus leader Lukashenko says joint drills with Russia not intended to 'threaten anyone'
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has said they are “not planning to threaten anyone”, following the end of five days of joint war games with Russia.
The drills have unsettled surrounding countries and prompted international concern as they coincided with Russian violations of Polish and Romanian airspace.
“We are practising everything there,” he told Belarusian state agency Belta on Tuesday (16 September).
“They (the West) know this too, we are not hiding it. From firing conventional small arms to nuclear warheads. Again, we must be able to do all this. Otherwise, why would they be on Belarusian territory?
“But we are absolutely not planning to threaten anyone with this.”
Abducted Ukrainian children held at over 200 facilities across Russia for 'indoctrination', says Yale report
Ukrainian children are being indoctrinated at over 210 sites in 39 locations across Russia and occupied Ukraine, a new report by the Yale School of School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab has concluded.
The children abducted by Russia are being subjected to re-education at more than half of the facilities (62.9 per cent) and underwent militarisation in at least 18 per cent of the sites identified.
Described as a “potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training and dormitory facilities”, the sites are capable of holding tens of thousands of children for lengthy periods of time.
The report, titled Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-Education and Militarisation, used publicly sources including social media, Russian government statements, news reports and commercial satellite imagery.
Up to 35,000 Ukrainian children are estimated to have been allegedly abducted by Russian forces since the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia leaves Ukrainian city engulfed by flames
Seven civilians killed and 49 injured across Ukraine in last 24 hours, say regional authorities
At least seven civilians have been killed and 49 injured in Russian attacks across Ukraine over the last 24 hours, regional authorities said on Tuesday (16 September).
The Ukrainian Air Force said 113 Shaheds were used in the attacks. Eighty-nine of the drones were intercepted, but 22 hit across six locations in Ukraine.
The affected areas include Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhizhia, Donetsk, and Mykolaiv, according statements issued by the Governors of each region on Telegram.
Nato’s new red lines could turn Ukraine into a no man’s land
The intrusion of a significant number of Russian drones over Poland last week was already focusing minds in Nato, not least on the thorny question of where it draws its “red lines”, when another such incursion took place at the weekend.
Last Wednesday, 19 Russian drones were found to have crossed over into Polish airspace, some having travelled hundreds of miles inland, before a handful were shot down by local and Nato aircraft. It marked an unsettling escalation of tensions between Russia and Europe, and prompted Poland’s prime minister to declare military conflict on the continent “closer than at any time since the Second World War”.
Mark Almond reports:
Nato’s new red lines could turn Ukraine into a no man’s land
In photos: Russia's deadly strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine kills one person and injures 13
The first images of the site of a Russian strike have been released by the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration on Tuesday (16 September).
