Quick confession: I’ve stopped being startled by this headline. Poland launches fighter jets because Russia is bombing Ukraine again. Read, nod, move on.
That reaction bothers me more than the news does.
The short version of what happened
Around 17 September, Russian attack drones were spotted over western Ukraine, and Poland sent fighters up. The day before, border areas in Poland had an air-raid warning, and two airports, Rzeszów and Lublin, shut down for a while.
A few days later came a stranger moment. A Russian Mi-8 helicopter crossed into Polish airspace near Braniewo, next to Kaliningrad, for roughly 42 seconds. Same day, NATO jets had already been scrambled that morning, and people around Lublin got an emergency alert on their phones.
“On alert,” decoded
Poland’s military statements sound almost identical every time: jets up, a radar-detection plane up, ground air defence on high readiness. They call it preventive, which means the goal is protecting Polish airspace near the Ukrainian border, not escalating anything.
I believe that. But it also means real people are flying real aircraft and staring at radar screens through the night, again and again.
How normal it has become
- 15 January: jets scrambled during a massive missile strike.
- 25 December 2024: the same, on Christmas Day.
- Since then: repeated scrambles, now treated as standard procedure after missiles landed on Polish soil in earlier attacks.
Romania does this too. Two of its F-16s went up recently to check an aerial target near the border, and it ended without any incursion. Drones have entered NATO airspace before, and some have crashed there, mostly in Poland and Romania.
What worries me
Drones don’t respect borders, and neither do mistakes. One navigation error could turn a quiet night into a real crisis.
Constant alerts also make it hard to notice the one that counts.
And ordinary people carry part of the burden. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced plans to ease traffic at the Ukraine border so long queues of vehicles don’t become targets, and to tighten security at the checkpoints.
Final thought
Poland’s stance boils down to “we’re watching, and we’re ready.” Sensible, yes. But holding that stance indefinitely is exhausting, and the war’s edge is now visible from Polish skies.