Poland shoots down Russian drones in its airspace

Tusk has called for an emergency meeting of the council of ministers on Wednesday morning, a government spokesman said.

Poland's military command said drones repeatedly violated Polish airspace during the Russian attack across the border, in western Ukraine, but operations against these violations had concluded.

Radars tracked more than 10 objects and those that could pose a threat were "neutralised", the command said.

"Some of the drones that entered our airspace were shot down. Searches and efforts to locate the potential crash sites of these objects are ongoing," it said in a statement.

Russia's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been briefed, CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins said on Tuesday.

NATO is yet to comment on the incident.

Since the war started in 2022, there have been several incidents of Russian drones entering the airspace of states bordering Ukraine, including Poland and Romania, but they have so far avoided shooting them down.

Officials have cited the physical danger that such actions could cause and a desire to avoid an escalation in tensions between Russia and NATO.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the violations of Poland's airspace showed Russian President Vladimir Putin was expanding his war and testing the West.

"The longer he faces no strength in response, the more aggressive he gets," Sybiha said on X.

Chopin airport in Warsaw, the country's largest, closed its airspace for several hours before reopening.

Most of Ukraine, including western regions of Volyn and Lviv, which border Poland, had been under air raid alerts for nearly all night, according to Ukraine's air force.

In the United States, Democratic senator Dick Durbin said repeated violations of NATO airspace by Russian drones were a sign that "Vladimir Putin is testing our resolve to protect Poland and the Baltic nations".

Republican representative Joe Wilson, a senior member of the foreign affairs committee, said in a post on X that Russia was "attacking NATO ally Poland" with drones, calling it an "act of war".

Wilson urged US President Donald Trump to respond with sanctions "that will bankrupt the Russian war machine".

Trump, who warmly welcomed Putin to the United States for a summit in August, said at the weekend he was ready to move to a second phase of sanctioning Russia after months of fruitless talks about a peace deal.

It was his strongest indication yet that he might escalate pressure on Moscow or its oil buyers in response to the war in Ukraine.

The European Union's top sanctions official was in Washington on Monday to discuss what would be the first co-ordinated trans-Atlantic measures against Russia since Trump returned to office in January promising to end the war in 24 hours.

Poland has been on high alert for objects entering its airspace since a stray Ukrainian missile struck a southern Polish village in 2022, killing two people, a few months into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Poland earlier said it would close its border with Belarus on Thursday at midnight local time as a result of Russia-led military exercises taking place in Belarus.

Russia and Belarus's large-scale military exercises, known as the "Zapad" drills, have raised security concerns in neighbouring NATO member states Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.