WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland will engage in discussions to create safe skies over Ukraine but future solutions must not compromise Polish national security, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday after a summit meeting of Ukraine and its allies.
“I told our partners that Poland is very interested in having safe skies, but this must be related to security guarantees for Poland,” Tusk said after the meeting of the Coalition of the Willing in Paris.
Poland has been on high alert for objects entering its airspace since a stray Ukrainian missile struck a southern Polish village in 2022, killing two people, a few months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier on Thursday the Polish army said that two incursions of Polish airspace by drones occurred overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, but they were not shot down as they posed no danger. Polish and allied aircraft have been continuously scrambled to monitor its airspace during Russian air attacks on Ukraine.
Poland, a NATO member, has been one of Ukraine’s most vocal and committed supporters in its fight against Russian aggression.
In August, a drone crashed into a cornfield in eastern Poland, near the Belarusian border. A prosecutor investigating the incident said at the time it appeared to have entered Poland from the direction of Belarus, an ally of Russia.
(Reporting by Barbara Erling, Marek StrzeleckiEditing by Gareth Jones)
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