• Agent641@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Once the missiles are over Ukrainian airspace without permission, its littering, and they technically become Ukrainian property. If Ukraine chooses to designate them as targets for a neighbourly live fire exercise, then that’s their prerogative.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    5 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said Warsaw is considering a proposal from Kyiv to shoot down Russian missiles heading towards Polish territory while they are still in Ukrainian airspace.The proposal was included in a joint defence agreement between the two countries signed during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Warsaw earlier this week.

    What our agreement said is we will explore this idea,” Mr Sikorski told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.He said some Russian missiles fired from the St Petersburg area towards Ukrainian targets near the western city of Lviv, not far from the Polish border, traversed Belarus and entered Polish airspace for about 40 seconds before turning towards their targets in Ukraine.Mr Sikorski acknowledged that such a short time gave Poland little time to react.However the proposal would theoretically cover any missile traversing western Ukraine in the direction of Poland.“We are a frontline state and Russian missiles breach our airspace.

    "To my mind, that’s self-defence but we are exploring the idea,” Mr Sikorski said.Mr Sikorski said an unarmed Russian missile landed near his home in Bydgoszcz about 500km (311 miles) from the Belarusian border, without harming anyone, in December 2022.Two Polish citizens had been killed by falling debris when Ukraine shot down a Russian missile near the Polish border a month earlier.Earlier this week, Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said Warsaw would consult with its Nato allies and seek their agreement before attempting to shoot down any Russian missiles.“If there would be such a decision, it can only be an allied decision.

    It will never be an individual decision,” Mr Kosiniak-Kamysz told Poland’s TVN broadcaster at a Nato summit in Washington DC.

    “The key opinion is the United States, who is quite sceptical in this matter, so Poland will certainly not make such a decision on its own,” he added.Marek Swierczynski, a defence analyst for Polityka Insight, told the BBC the idea could prove perilous for Poland.“Without robust allied support, which there isn’t, this proposal is very risky,” he said.

    "From the point of view of our air defence assets and the fact we might be subject to some kind of Russian response.”Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Poland has provided Ukraine with 44 packages of weapons and ammunition, including more than 250 tanks, MiG-29 fighter jets, combat helicopters, artillery systems and portable air defence missile systems worth more than €4bn ($4.4bn; £3.4bn).Poland plans to provide additional military assistance to Ukraine this year.


    The original article contains 474 words, the summary contains 410 words. Saved 14%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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    5 months ago

    If Ukraine OK with it, what’s the problem, it’s over Ukraine airspace after all.

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Of course but there is always the risk that Russia gets mad enough that it fires missiles at Poland.

      Logic like that doesn’t really work on an international scale with missiles. It’s not like it’s guaranteed that Russia will react with “Damnit, they are technically correct so I guess we will do nothing”

      • LavenderDay3544@lemmings.world
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        5 months ago

        Russia gets mad enough that it fires missiles at Poland.

        Poland is a NATO member. If they attacked Poland, it’s game over for Russia. NATO, mostly the US really, would curbstomp them so hard.

        • lud@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          Maybe.

          NATO obviously doesn’t want to get involved so it’s quite likely they will do jack shit if just a couple of missiles hit Poland.

          People here always have such a weird superiority complex when it comes to NATO. Yes NATO would likely win in the end but LOTS of people would die in the process.

          • LavenderDay3544@lemmings.world
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            4 months ago

            If a NATO member is attacked the other members are treaty bound to come to its defense.

            And there’s no superiority complex about it. Russia’s military is a joke compared to the US military. The US Air Force and Navy could flatten Russia without having a single boot on the ground if the US was forced into a confrontation with it.

      • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        The risk is there no mater what Poland does. Russian missiles already fell on Polish land. If russia could do more they’d already do that.

        Poland can just declare that they are protecting from stray missiles before they enter their airspace. What are russians going to do? Fire missiles at NATO country? At the very least, they’d just get massive wall of AA along the Polish border shooting down missiles even deeper in Ukraine.

        Remember that russia already claimed that there is NATO crew manning the AA systems in Ukraine. Following their propaganda, this would actually be deescalation.

        • lud@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          Yes, but there are obviously reasons for not doing it. Otherwise they would already be doing that.

          • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I’d say that big concern is AA missiles falling on Ukraine. It opens a can of worms where technically Polish-operated missile might kill citizens of Ukraine. Nothing is 100% failsafe. They probably need to flash out all possible eventualities and it’s not risk-free politically, so it requires someone motivated enough to push the thing through.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The question is how far Poland can intervene before Russians up their intervention in Poland.

      There’s a stark split in Polish politics over whether they should be involved in this fight at all (and some significant pro-Russian sentiment in Poland disputing which side they should even be on). Escalating means increasing tensions at home and potentially inviting a political backlash for the Duda administration.