Germany has deployed five Eurofighters and around 150 military personnel to the Polish town of Malbork to secure the country’s airspace, the German air force (Luftwaffe) said on Thursday (December 4) in response to Russian drone attacks in September, according to Reuters.
In mid-September, Polish F-16 fighter jets, Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft, and NATO mid-air refueling aircraft conducted a raid to shoot down suspected Russian drones that had entered Polish airspace. One of the drones crashed into a two-story brick house in the eastern Polish village of Wyryki-Wola.
This is the first time a NATO member has been reported to have fired during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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The German Eurofighters sent to Poland are operating as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Eastern Sentry mission and will remain stationed in Malbork, some 60 kilometers from Gdansk and 80 kilometers from the heavily armed Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, until March next year, according to the Luftwaffe.
“With this mission, we are sending another strong message of support for our neighbor Poland and NATO in total,” German Air Chief Holger Neumann said, according to Reuters.