Poland considers downing Russian missiles over Ukraine
Poland considers downing Russian missiles over Ukraine
Foreign Minister Sikorski says of the proposal, included in a defence agreement, "at this stage this is an idea".
You're viewing a single thread.
If Ukraine OK with it, what's the problem, it's over Ukraine airspace after all.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, but there are obviously reasons for not doing it. Otherwise they would already be doing that.
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.
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.