Fighter jets from the United Kingdom will join NATO allies in guarding Polish airspace after an incursion by Russian drones last week, Britain’s defence secretary said.
RAF Typhoon aircraft based at Coningsby in Lincolnshire will begin air defence missions over Poland in the coming days, supported by RAF Voyager air-to-air refuelling tankers, Defence Secretary John Healey said. The deployment forms part of a multinational mission, named Eastern Sentry, that already includes Danish F-16s, French Rafales and German Eurofighters.
“Putin tested NATO, NATO responded with unity, and the UK will play our full part,” Healey said, calling the Russian actions “reckless, dangerous, and unprecedented.” Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the Typhoons’ participation was “vital in deterring aggression, securing NATO airspace, and protecting our national security and that of our allies.”
Poland said 19 drones entered its territory in the incident, which it described as the most serious of its kind and the first time a NATO member has directly engaged Russian drones since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Moscow has said the incursion was not deliberate.
Initial assessments suggest the devices were Gerbera “decoy” drones rather than armed systems, and there were no reported casualties. The episode prompted Warsaw to invoke Article 4 of the NATO treaty, a mechanism that allows members to raise security concerns with the alliance’s North Atlantic Council. NATO held talks on Sept. 10 and confirmed plans to bolster defences on its eastern flank.
Allied forces have been on heightened alert in recent days. A French jet was scrambled earlier on Monday in response to a potential drone incursion, a NATO official said; the alert was brief and the situation was quickly assessed as over. Separately, Romania reported that a Russian drone breached its airspace on Sunday. Romanian fighters tracking a Russian attack on Ukraine the previous day had detected the system near Ukraine’s southern border before it disappeared from radar and did not pose an imminent threat, the Romanian defence ministry said.
The UK Ministry of Defence said the Typhoons will continue to operate from Coningsby while deploying to the NATO mission, a pattern similar to previous RAF contributions. Over the past 18 months the RAF has temporarily deployed Typhoons to Poland and Romania to protect allied airspace.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the incursion brought the country “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two,” underlining the escalation in sensitivity among NATO members bordering Ukraine. NATO officials have described the alliance’s response as a demonstration of unity and deterrence rather than a provocation.
The deployment of UK fighters adds to a wider allied effort to reassure eastern members and reinforce air defences amid recurring incidents in border regions adjacent to the war in Ukraine. NATO and national militaries have reiterated that measures are defensive and intended to prevent further violations of member states’ sovereign airspace.