Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Warsaw is considering Kyiv’s proposal to shoot down Russian missiles heading toward Polish territory while they are still in Ukrainian airspace.
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The proposal was included in a general defense agreement between the two countries signed during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Warsaw earlier this week.
At this stage, it is an idea. Our agreement says that we will study this idea, Sikorsky said.
Previously, the idea of involving Poland in shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine did not find support in NATO.
The United States and NATO do not want to provoke Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. So Poland will probably not shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine.
This was stated by the White House spokesman for national security issues, John Kirby, Polskie Radio reports.
As Kirby stated, at present, escalation of the conflict would not be beneficial for either Ukraine or Poland.
Nobody wants to escalate this war. We want to look for ways to make Ukraine effective, but we don’t want escalation. It wouldn’t be good for the Ukrainians, it wouldn’t be good for the Poles, it wouldn’t be good for anybody, Kirby said.
According to him, the Americans do not want war with Russia.
He also said that the Polish government should determine and express its own position on self-defense procedures, while reiterating that the US does not want escalation.
We do not want to give Putin arguments that the war was provoked by NATO, that this is a war between Russia and the West or Russia and the United States, he added.
He noted that the assessment of whether a particular downing of an aircraft was self-defense or an escalation depends on the circumstances.
Russia has launched its missiles at Ukraine more than once, but in the direction of Poland and even violated its airspace. However, all the times the Polish air defense did not shoot them down.
After one such incident, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called on Warsaw to shoot down such missiles. Later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv and Warsaw were working on a mechanism under which Polish air defense would shoot down Russian missiles and drones.
Source: Racurs
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