Map Shows NATO Jets Scrambled Against Russian Aircraft, 'Aerial Objects'

NATO members Poland and Germany deployed their jets against Russian aircraft and aerial objects on Monday as Moscow launched one of its largest drone and missile barrages against Ukraine in the war so far.

Poland's military said fighter jets and helicopters were scrambled after an unidentified "aerial object" entered Polish airspace at 6:43 a.m. local time.

Warsaw has been forced to scramble its fighter jets on multiple occasions throughout the war as part of measures to protect its airspace during large-scale Russian missile strikes on Ukraine. Poland has said that Russian missiles fired at western Ukraine entered its airspace several times. Moscow has said incursions were accidental.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment by email.

Germany's air force also said its Eurofighter Typhoons stationed in Latvia were deployed to intercept a Russian Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft (NATO code name Coot-A), which was "operating in the Baltic Sea area without a transponder or flight plan."

The NATO fighter jets took off from the town of Lielvarde, located to the southeast of the capital, Riga, Germany's Luftwaffe said in a statement posted to social media.

Russian Il-20 intelligence aircraft have been intercepted in the Baltic Sea by Germany's air force on several occasions throughout the war, including in late January. The Luftwaffe said at the time that a NATO aircraft "briefly accompanied it before it turned back to the east."

The NATO military alliance said at the start of the year that its member states will deploy jets "when there are signs of Russian military planes approaching allied airspace in unpredictable ways."

In Poland, a large number of military personnel have been deployed to search for the "aerial object," thought to be a Russian drone, which entered its airspace during Moscow's large-scale attack on Ukraine.

"More than 100 soldiers of the Territorial Defence Forces are already on site. These are ground search and rescue teams," Lieutenant Colonel Jacek Goryszewski, a spokesman for the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces, said.

Since March, Warsaw has mulled intercepting Russian missiles that go close to its borders during the war in Ukraine.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said in July that the proposal to down Russian missiles over Ukraine was first put forward by Kyiv, and that it was under consideration as part of a joint defense agreement signed by both parties. "At this stage, this is an idea. What our agreement said is that we will explore this idea," he said at the sidelines of a NATO summit.

Oleg Tyapkin, the head of the European department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, warned last week that Russia would respond if Poland attempts to intercept missiles over Ukraine, state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported.

If Poland "succumbs to an adventurous impulse and decides to attempt to intercept long-range weapons legally used by our armed forces to neutralize military threats emanating from Ukrainian territory to Russia, then the response to them will be adequate and quite concrete," said Tyapkin.

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