‘Largest concentration of violations of Nato airspace,’ Rutte says of Russian drones incursion into Poland as launches new mission to defend eastern flank
Nato’s Mark Rutte opens the briefing saying that on 10 September “numerous Russian drones violated Polish airspace,” with air defences “activated” to defend the Nato territory.
“Whilst this was the largest concentration of violations of Nato airspace that we have seen, what happened on Wednesday was not an isolated incident,” he says, noting similar incidents in Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
He says “Russia’s recklessness in the air along our eastern flank is increasing in frequency.”
Whether intentional or not, it is dangerous and unacceptable.
He says Nato will launch a new mission – dubbed “Eastern sentry” – to “bolster our posture even further along our eastern flank,” involving “a range of assets from allies including Denmark, France, UK, Germany and others.”
“Eastern sentry will add flexibility and strength to our posture and make clear that as a defensive alliance, we are always ready to defend,” he says.
Key events
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Rutte doesn’t make call on whether Russian drone incursion was deliberate or not
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Grynkewich says ‘Nato will continue to defend every inch of territory’
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‘Largest concentration of violations of Nato airspace,’ Rutte says of Russian drones incursion into Poland as launches new mission to defend eastern flank
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Nato’s Rutte, Grynkewich speaking now on Russian drone incursion
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EU car industry lobby wants ‘bold’ action to speed up adoption of electric cars in commercial sector
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Patience with Putin ‘running out and running out fast,’ Trump says
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Emergency UN security council meeting convened after Russian drone incursion into Poland
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Germany, France summon Russian ambassadors to protest over Polish airspace drone incursion
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EU working on new proposals for electrifying fleets, but not open to revising 2035 target
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EU car industry launches campaign to delay 2035 target for phasing out petrol cars
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EU extends sanctions on Russian officials over war in Ukraine
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Russia-Ukraine talks ‘on pause,’ Kremlin says, as it accuses European countries of ‘holding back’ talks
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German air policing over Poland already operational, spokesperson says
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Nato calls press conference with secretary general Rutte, top commander Grynkewich
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Poland’s Tusk hints at more UK involvement in Poland, offers no details
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Poland’s Tusk talks about plans for ramping up domestic ammunition production
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EU could phase out Russian oil, gas faster to help end Ukraine war, US energy secretary Wright says
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Poland’s Sikorski meets with UK’s Cooper in Kyiv for talks on Ukraine, Nato’s eastern flank
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21 reported drone incursions into Poland, president’s senior aide says
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Prince Harry makes surprise visit to Ukraine pledging support for thousands injured in war
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‘We were supposed to have sanctions; instead, we got Alaska,’ Poland’s foreign minister on Trump’s decisions on Russia
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Morning opening: We wish it it was, but it wasn’t a mistake
Rutte doesn’t make call on whether Russian drone incursion was deliberate or not
Rutte is speaking again.
Notably, he repeatedly uses careful language on whether the Russian drone incursion into Poland was deliberate or not.
He says:
“Our assessment of the incidents on Wednesday is ongoing and whether or not Russia’s actions were deliberate, Russia’s violated Nato airspace.
Therefore we must, as Nato, make clear our resolve and our ability to defend our territory.”
Grynkewich says ‘Nato will continue to defend every inch of territory’
Supreme Allies Commander Europe Alexus Grynkewich says the issue of regional security was central to his recent conversation with leaders in the Baltics, as well as a discussion on “Nato’s response to the reckless and dangerous act that occured in Poland earlier this week.”
He says he is “incredibly proud of our response.”
He says “this decisiveness will continue with Eastern sentry,” as he adds that “although the immediacy of our focus is on Poland, this situation transcends the borders of one nation.”
“Poland and citizens from across the Alliance should be assured by our rapid response earlier this week and our significant announcement here today.
Nato will continue to defend every inch of its territory.”
‘Largest concentration of violations of Nato airspace,’ Rutte says of Russian drones incursion into Poland as launches new mission to defend eastern flank
Nato’s Mark Rutte opens the briefing saying that on 10 September “numerous Russian drones violated Polish airspace,” with air defences “activated” to defend the Nato territory.
“Whilst this was the largest concentration of violations of Nato airspace that we have seen, what happened on Wednesday was not an isolated incident,” he says, noting similar incidents in Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
He says “Russia’s recklessness in the air along our eastern flank is increasing in frequency.”
Whether intentional or not, it is dangerous and unacceptable.
He says Nato will launch a new mission – dubbed “Eastern sentry” – to “bolster our posture even further along our eastern flank,” involving “a range of assets from allies including Denmark, France, UK, Germany and others.”
“Eastern sentry will add flexibility and strength to our posture and make clear that as a defensive alliance, we are always ready to defend,” he says.
Nato’s Rutte, Grynkewich speaking now on Russian drone incursion
Rutte and Grynkewich are speaking now.
EU car industry lobby wants ‘bold’ action to speed up adoption of electric cars in commercial sector
Lisa O’Carroll
The slow transition of commercial vehicles including vans, trucks and buses from petrol and diesel to battery power is a major barrier for the EU in its effort to switch to electric vehicles on Europe’s roads, the European Commission was told today.
ACEA, the main European car industry body, told commission president Ursula von der Leyen at a summit today that “bold” action was needed to improve the switch over among laggard business owners.
It said just 8.5% of vans on EU roads are electric, while trucks and buses represent just 3.5% of battery electric registrations.
Lack of charging points on the public networks, lack of financial incentives to buy electric and grid capacity, are holding the transition back, the commission was told.
“Truck and bus makers are committed to Europe’s green transition: the vehicles are ready, but the enabling conditions are not” stated Christian Levin, CEO of Traton Group and Scania.
Electric car registrations now represent 15% of the market, with hybrid cars continuing to grow and now standing at 35%.
The car manufacturing lobby is campaigning for delays to the 2035 deadline to end the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles. Second hand cars could continue to be sold after this date however.
Polish defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said he spoke with US defence secretary (or war secretary, under the new terminology) Pete Hegseth about the Russian drone incursions earlier this week and was reassured of the US “friendship and full allied support.”
Jakub Krupa
A reminder that we’re expecting a joint press conference by the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Alexus Gregory Grynkewich at the top of the hour (11:57).
I will bring you all the latest here.
Ukraine is increasingly finding Russian and Belarusian circuit boards and computer chips in Iskander missiles, which have been used regularly by Russia since its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Reuters reports.
“In the 2025 Iskander, compared to the 2022 Iskander, there are fewer European and US (components), and more from Russia and Belarus,” Vladyslav Vlasiuk, commissioner for sanctions policy and an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told reporters this week.
The ballistic version of the Iskander missile is particularly difficult to intercept because it travels at several times the speed of sound. The cruise version of the missile travels more slowly.
The chips appear to be of lower quality than Western ones, but they do not appear to affect the missiles’ performance, Vlasiuk said.
“They have the ability to make chips which are of poor quality – so far. After some time, they will get better,” he said.
Kyiv has often found Western electronics in Russian missiles and put pressure on manufacturers to tighten controls on their exports.
Belarus does not take an active part in the war in Ukraine but is a close ally of Russia and allowed its territory to be used as a staging ground for Moscow’s troops to launch their 2022 invasion.
A Belarusian dissident who refused to leave his home country after being released from prison there earlier this week has gone missing, his wife told AFP on Friday.
Mikola Statkevich, who had been in jail for five years, was due to cross into Lithuania on Thursday alongside 51 other political prisoners but got out of the bus just beforehand, Belarusian media reported.
Security camera footage published by Belarus’s border service showed a man resembling Statkevich sitting in a border zone between the two countries for several hours, before disappearing from view.
The 69-year-old, who ran against Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in 2010, is a prominent member of the country’s opposition.
“He went towards Belarus, and after that all information about him was cut off,” Statkevich’s wife Marina Adamovich confirmed to AFP by phone.
She said his return to Belarus “was the only possible action for him in this situation”.
“Freedom is subjective, and in this case people were deprived of subjectivity. And I knew that Mikola would not allow this to happen,” she said.
Earlier on Friday, Belarus’s exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said she was “worried about the fate” of Statkevich and that his whereabouts were now “unknown”.
The European Union’s next package of sanctions against Russia must be “as tough as possible”, Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said during a visit to Kyiv on Friday.
Denmark, which holds the EU’s rotating six-month presidency will push for the adoption of a 19th round of sanctions during its term, which ends in December, Lokke said.
“It must be a full-fledged sanctions package, addressing circumvention, the shadow fleet, the financial sector… we also need stronger transatlantic cooperation,” he told a joint press conference with Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha in Kyiv.
Rasmussen said that Denmark would also welcome any initiative from the United States on sanctions, Reuters reports.
He added that the Nordic country would encourage more Ukrainian defence companies to establish themselves in Denmark in order to start production there.
“We are actually in dialogue with quite a few Ukrainian companies,” he said.
The Danish government earlier this month said that Ukrainian Fire Point, maker of Flamingo missiles, will start producing fuel for long-range missiles in Denmark, marking the first expansion abroad by a Ukrainian defence company.
The Netherlands has added itself to several countries pressuring organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest to drop Israel from the contest because of its war in the Gaza Strip.
Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, one of dozens of public broadcasters that collectively fund and broadcast the contest, said it would not take part in next year’s competition in Vienna if Israel participates “given the ongoing and severe human suffering in Gaza.”
“The broadcaster also expresses deep concern about the serious erosion of press freedom: the deliberate exclusion of independent international reporting and the many casualties among journalists,” it said in a statement, the Associated Press reports.
Irish broadcaster RTE released a similar statement on Thursday, following a path already taken by Slovenia. Iceland said it may withdraw from the contest and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has called for Israel to be booted from the competition.
The boycott threat is part of a pressure campaign by arts organisations and figures to ostracise Israel and press for peace.
France risks a downgrade on its ability to pay back debts, economists said, a move that would further complicate new prime minister Sebastien Lecornu’s task of drawing up a budget for next year.
US ratings agency Fitch, one of the top global institutions gauging the financial solidity of sovereign borrowers, is to deliver its latest assessment of France’s creditworthiness later on Friday after Wall Street closes.
It comes only days after Lecornu’s predecessor Francois Bayrou lost a confidence vote in parliament over an attempt to get an austerity budget adopted, which he had hoped would cut the French deficit and tackle a growing debt mountain.
Fitch currently rates France’s ability to repay its sovereign debt at “AA-”, indicating “a very strong capacity for payment of financial commitments”, AFP reports.
A downgrade to A would imply that France’s debt repayment capacity may be “more vulnerable to adverse business or economic conditions”.
An agency rating downgrade typically raises the risk premium that investors demand of a government to buy sovereign bonds – although some financial experts suggested that the debt market already reflects the expected downgrade for France.
Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares has summoned the Israeli charge d’affaires in Madrid on Friday over recent comments about Spain made by the office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Albares summoned Dana Erlich – currently Israel’s top diplomat in Madrid – to “categorically reject the false and slanderous statements from the Israeli prime minister’s office”, Spain’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
In an X post on Thursday, Netanyahu’s office had accused Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez of making “genocidal threats”, in reference to Sanchez’s announcement on Monday of new measures against Israel-bound arms and fuel deliveries, Reuters reports.
Sanchez had justified the measures by saying Spain lacked nuclear bombs, aircraft carriers or large oil reserves to exert pressure on Israel to stop what he qualified as “genocide”.
Israel has strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide, and it is fighting a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague that accuses it of genocide.
The US State Department also expressed concern over Madrid’s limitations on ships and aircraft delivering weapons or military-grade jet fuel to Israel, as well as entry bans on the Israeli national security and finance ministers.
