Ukraine vs Russia IV - The Betrayal

We finally put together a decent 90 minutes and Putin is like…******** it…ima send drones into Poland

 

German special forces boarded the small cargo ship Scanlark while it was in the Kiel Canal. The ship had electronic surveillance equipment and its Russian crew had launched drones to observe German military sites.


https://news.err.ee/1609793949/medi...nspect-estonian-run-ship-over-espionage-fears

 

https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/polen-...s-bij-neerhalen-drones-uit-rusland~aad72a23b/
Poland confirms help of Dutch F-35s in downing drones from Russia
With video
The Polish army says Tuesday night, with the help of the Netherlands, that it downed several drones with fighter planes. The airspace violation took place when Russia carried out an attack on Ukraine.
"This is an act of aggression that poses a real threat to the safety of our citizens," the army writes on X. It is the first time since the Ukraine invasion that Poland has attacked drones from Russia.
Not only Polish fighter planes were deployed, the Netherlands also helped with F-35 fighter jets. According to the BBC, the army has thanked the Netherlands and NATO for the help in a statement. The Polish army says that dozens of flying objects have been monitored. The drones that could pose a threat were neutralised. It is unclear how many drones have been downed, although Prime Minister Tusk speaks of a 'huge number'. NATO says it is in close consultation with Poland. "Numerous drones have (...) encountered the air defences of Poland and NATO," reports the spokesman for Secretary General Mark Rutte. He is 'in contact with the leadership of Poland', the spokeswoman assures.
According to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, there are indications that there was intent and not an accident. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense, on the other hand, says that Poland was warned about drones that had gone "off course." Belarus says the warning has enabled Poland to take action.

 

It seems that at least 19 drones cross Polish border. How many is enough to realize that it is no longer an accident?

 

And, unlike past occurrences where the drones were just turning around to get another angle to hit a Ukrainian city, these drones circled in and out of Poland. They did it long enough that Poland and NATO were able to scramble jets and intercept them.

 

I think Putin wants a conflict with NATO but I don't think he's thought through the consequences of Poland leaving NATO and walking through Belarus

 

I used to think that, but now I don't think Poland wants that either.

 

How so?

 

If y'all will remember a month or so ago Ukraine pushed through a law that removed the independence of the anti-corruption organization (NABU) and, due to push back from its European allies, they immediately passed another law reversing that change. Well, that didn't resolve the problem as there are still issues between NABU and organizations that are loyal to Zelensky. One example of these issues is that the SBU (loyal to Zelensky) just arrested one of the detectives for NABU for failing to disclose all of his assets when applying to the NABU job.

The detective allegedly purchased an apartment in 2023, but listed the mother of a close friend as the owner and listed the apartment as a rental in his 2024 asset declaration. The SBU contacted the woman listed as the owner and she said she was not aware of the property and had not received any rent on it.

However, this is just one instance of the conflict between NABU and SBU. Since the SBU raiding NABU's offices and the homes of many of its employees and the law removing its independence, NABU charged a top SBU official with illicit enrichment and lying on his asset declaration and the SBU arrested a pro-Russian lawmaker for treason and claimed the lawmaker was a key part in Russian influence on NABU

https://kyivindependent.com/top-ant...-detective-over-suspected-false-declarations/

 

This isn't the first time that Russian drones have entered Polish airspace. This is definitely the most egregious, but there have been a number of instances where individual drones have gone into Polish airspace, turned around, and hit targets in Ukraine.

Russia has also been caught redhanded a number of times paying Polish people in Eastern Poland to disrupt military shipments to Ukraine and grain shipments out of Ukraine. Not to mention undermining the influence they've been conducting against Poland's ruling parties (Both Law and Justice when they were in charge and the Civic Coalition that is currently in charge).

 

They've been finding the drones on the ground in Poland now. So far they all seem to be the Gerbera type - ultra cheap drones mostly made of styrofoam used as decoys so Ukraine expends expensive shells and missiles against them instead of the pricier Shahed. The Gerbera usually isn't armed, but Russia has been known to put small (10kg roughly) explosives or intelligence gathering equipment in them.

They mostly landed not far from the border, but one made it close to Gdansk and another close to Lodz, and another two near Warsaw. Those are roughly 400km from the border with Ukraine. That wasn't accidental. This was a message.

EDIT: We now see that in order to travel that additional distance these had an extra fuel tank installed internally. There's zero doubt this was intentional.

 

At some point they'll have to escalate, though, if Russia keeps it up

 

You say that, but they haven't yet.

 

Belarus claims the drones going into Poland were all Ukraine's fault. Belarus says that to shoot down several drones enter their airspace due to Ukrainian EW that caused the drones to go off course. They also claim that they warned Poland about the drones so that they could be prepared for the incursion.

https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...went-astray-during-russia-ukraine-2025-09-10/

 

Do you mean a military response, or an economic one? Trump is, allegedly, going to use this attack to impose sanctions on India and China, but I doubt he'll do anything military related. The European NATO members don't seem to keen on either right now.

 

Those proposals are days old. Trump's just pivoting his reason for them to pretend like he's reacting to events.

 

There are now claims that remnants of Russian rockets are found in Poland.

 

Zapad-2025 starts soon, presumably troops already on the ground. Will something pop off? Maybe.