Poland's deputy prime minister on Thursday urged NATO to establish an "anti-drone wall" along the alliance's eastern flank after a wave of Russian unmanned aerial vehicles breached Polish airspace this week, striking civilian property and colliding with a military base.
Radosław Sikorski, speaking on BBC Radio 4, said Poland required new short-range means to detect and defeat drones as well as additional longer-range systems such as Patriot batteries. The call came after up to 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace during a broader Russian strike campaign against Ukraine; Polish and allied NATO aircraft shot down as many as four of those drones, officials said.
The incursions, which Polish authorities and several European officials described as a deliberate provocation, damaged civilian homes and struck a facility used by Poland's Territorial Defence Forces. Warsaw activated Article 4 of the NATO Treaty, calling on allies to consult on collective responses after the episode deepened fears that the three-year war in Ukraine could spill over into NATO territory.
Sikorski said the alliance should consider establishing a layered air-defence posture on NATO's border with Russia, including acoustic detection systems and cheaper, more effective ways to shoot down drones. "We have equipment to deal with jets, with fighters, but what we need now is an anti-drone wall on our border," he said. "This is the border of NATO — these drones have huge ranges. They've been breaching airspace, not just Poland but Romania and Lithuania. So it's a common threat to which we should have a common answer."
Former U.S. diplomat Kurt Volker, speaking separately on Radio 4, urged NATO to declare an extended air-defence zone around alliance territory. "I think the best way to handle that is to declare an extended air defence zone around NATO territory, so that anything coming within 200km, we would say 'NATO would be prepared to work to take it out,'" he said.
Poland's government said some of the drones had originated from Belarus, where Russian and local forces were gathering for planned exercises. Warsaw announced it would close the border with Belarus at midnight Thursday and the Polish Air Navigation Agency imposed air traffic restrictions in the eastern part of the country at the request of the military.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, addressing troops at a central air base, praised the rapid response of Polish forces and NATO allies, including aircraft from the Netherlands that assisted in intercepts. Tusk pledged to push ahead with a wide military modernisation programme and reiterated earlier plans to receive F-35 fighter jets from the United States, with the first tranche expected next year under a multiyear package agreed previously.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Moscow's actions represented an escalation. "Russia's war is escalating, not ending," she said, and called for stronger sanctions. Several European leaders characterised the incursion as a test of NATO and a possible prelude to broader aggression.
The incident marked the first publicly known case in which Russian drones were shot down while flying above NATO territory. Investigators recovered drone wreckage in central and eastern Poland, and images posted by authorities showed severe structural damage to at least one house and debris at a village site.
The events revived discussion of a continent-wide air-defence initiative known as Sky Shield, sometimes described in European planning documents as "Europe's Iron Dome." That concept, supported by several European states, aims to build an integrated air-defence architecture with some anti-ballistic capabilities to better protect NATO and EU territory from aerial attack. Sikorski argued that NATO partners should shoulder at least part of the cost of strengthening defences on Poland's border and called for boosting defence industrial capacity in Europe.
Allies said they were examining available inventories to determine what assets could be temporarily moved to Poland while longer-term production and deployment plans proceed. Officials stressed that NATO retains the capability to defend its members but that the recent incursions highlighted capability shortfalls in countering large numbers of lower-cost unmanned systems.
U.S. President Donald Trump's initial public comment on the incident was brief and ambiguous. On social media he wrote: "What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go!" The White House has previously said the United States will maintain a robust presence in Europe; U.S. and NATO officials have been in close contact with Warsaw since the incident.
Poland has reported repeated airspace violations since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but officials said this week's breach was unprecedented in scale for NATO territory. The Polish government said it will pursue immediate measures to reinforce eastern defences while pressing allies for coordinated, long-term investments in air-defence systems and defence manufacturing.
Officials in Brussels and capitals across NATO signalled that consultations under Article 4 would examine both political and military responses. Any change in alliance posture or the establishment of extended air-defence zones would require political agreement among member states and careful calibration to avoid further escalation with Moscow.
The incursion occurred amid continued US-led diplomatic efforts to find a settlement to the conflict in Ukraine, efforts that have so far failed to produce a breakthrough. European officials said the episode underlined the risks of the conflict spreading beyond Ukraine and renewed calls for stepped-up military support to Kyiv alongside diplomatic and economic pressure on Moscow.