Poland rejects Trump claim that Russian drone incursions “could have been a mistake”

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s government has rejected a suggestion by US President Donald Trump that this week’s multiple incursions by Russian drones into Polish airspace “could have been a mistake”.

On the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, around 20 drones entered Polish territory over the borders with Belarus and Ukraine. A number of them were shot down after Poland and its NATO allies scrambled aircraft in response to the incursion.

Warsaw has described the incident as an “unprecedented act of aggression” and many of its European NATO allies have used similar language. Some have pledged to send military equipment and forces to Poland to support its air defences.

By contrast, senior US officials have said relatively little about the incident. In the immediate aftermath, Trump’s only public comment was a post on Truth Social saying: “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go.”

Later on Wednesday, Trump held talks with his Polish counterpart, Karol Nawrocki, with the latter saying afterwards that the call had “confirmed allied unity”.

Speaking on Thursday, however, Trump told reporters that the drone violations “could have been a mistake”. But he added that, “regardless, I’m not happy about anything having to do with that whole situation. But hopefully it’s going to come to an end”.

His remarks were quickly rejected by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who wrote on social media: “We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it.”

Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, who is today on a visit to Ukraine, likewise wrote on social media that the incident “was not a mistake”.

Russia’s chargé d’affaires in Warsaw has declared that Moscow “considers [Poland’s] accusations groundless”, while the Russian defence ministry says “there were no plans to attack targets on Polish territory”.

Speaking on Wednesday – after the drone incursions but before Trump’s most recent remarks – Sikorski told US broadcaster PBS: “I think it’s high time that President Trump should see that Putin is mocking him.”

On Thursday, during an interview with Fox News, the foreign minister reiterated that message, saying that “we were supposed to have sanctions [on Russia] and instead we got Alaska” – referring to Trump hosting Putin for a summit in the US state – “and since then attacks have intensified”.

Sikorski said that he hoped Trump would now follow through on earlier pledges to impose tougher sanctions on Russia and provide long-range missiles to Ukraine.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: The White House/Wikimedia Commons (under public domain)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.