Nato jets have been scrambled after a Russian military helicopter flew 1,000ft into Poland’s airspace.
The Russian military Mi-8 helicopter made a brief incursion into Nato member Poland’s airspace from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, the Polish Army Operational Command said today.
The helicopter spent 42 seconds in Polish airspace and entered to a maximum depth of about 328 yards, it said on X.
‘Fighter aircraft were scrambled, and ground-based forces and assets remained on standby. The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is once again testing the readiness of our air defence,’ it said.
Poland is on heightened alert for any incursion into its airspace connected with Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment on the incident.
The incident comes on the back of alleged Russian activity near Romanian airspace last night.
Bucharest said that two Romanian F-16 fighter jets were scrambled ‘to respond to an aerial target manoeuvring in the northeast of the locality of Valkove, on Ukrainian territory, near the border with Romania’.
An hour later, the country’s defence ministry said the alert had concluded and that ‘no incursions into national airspace have been reported’.
