A Russian drone flew over Poland before entering Ukrainian air space where it was shot down, Ukraine’s military has claimed.
The Ukrainian air force command said in a statement last night that the drone flew into Nato airspace, accusing Moscow of a “provocation”.
The drone first circled over the site in Yavoriv, western Ukraine, which was hit by a salvo of cruise missiles on Sunday, in an apparent attempt to assess the result, the officials said. It then delved into Poland before returning to Ukrainian air space, where it was shot down by Ukraine’s air defences.
Ukrainian military sources said it was understood to be a Russian Forpost drone, which is a licensed copy of the Israeli Searcher drone. It is not flown by any other country.
The statement also referred to a recent incident in Romania where an Orlan-10 drone was found crashed. It said the drone was in service with the Russian armed forces.
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That aircraft was found by a local farmer in the nothern Bistrita-Nasaud county. An investigation was opened but there was no comment on the origin of the aircraft, according to Romanian media.
There was another reported incident of a drone entering Croatia. On March 11, a Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-141, armed with an explosive device, crashed in Zagreb. Mario Banozic, the Croatian defence minister, said at the time that it was unclear whether the drone belonged to Russia or Ukraine. “There are elements that indicated it could have come from both,” he said.
Croatian officials criticised Nato for what they described as a slow reaction to a serious incident. They also called into question the readiness of the military alliance’s member states to respond to a possible attack.
Sajid Javid, the British health secretary, said yesterday that President Putin will be “at war with Nato if a single Russian toecap” steps into any of the alliance’s territory.
Ukraine has repeatedly called on Nato to do more, but the alliance has refused to impose a no-fly zone over the country amid concerns it would spark a wider war with Russia.
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Russia’s aerial forces were previously focused on eastern and southern areas of Ukraine but in recent days have moved to the country’s centre, striking the city of Dnipro and the west with an attack on a military base near Poland.
John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said that Russia was “clearly, at least from an air strike perspective . . . broadening their target sets”.
A volley of missiles hit a large Ukrainian base in the town of Yavoriv, between the Polish border and the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, on Sunday.
A US defence official said Russia carried out its attack using air-launched cruise missiles fired from Russian airspace by long-range bombers.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the strike on the Yavoriv International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security near the border with Poland would not affect the West’s military resupply effort for Ukraine. The official said there were no US troops, contractors or civilian government workers at the base.
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The attack killed at least 35 people and wounded 134. Russia claimed that the attack had killed up to 180 “foreign mercenaries” and had destroyed a large cache of weapons supplied to Ukraine by other countries.
The sprawling facility at Yavoriv has long been used to train Ukrainian soldiers, often with instructors from the US and other countries in the western alliance. It has also hosted Nato training drills.
More than 30 Russian cruise missiles targeted the site on Sunday, the farthest west that Russia has struck during its 20-day campaign.
It is unclear whether British citizens who went out to fight in Ukraine were killed in the attack.
The Ministry of Defence is extremely concerned about British soldiers and veterans heading out to Ukraine after Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said she supported ex-military personnel and others going to the country to fight Russia.
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In a letter to veterans’ groups and charities, Leo Docherty, the veterans minister, urged them to help dissuade veterans from travelling to Ukraine. “The government’s position remains that travelling to Ukraine to fight, or to assist others engaged in the conflict, may amount to offences against UK legislation and could lead to prosecution,” he said.
In the letter seen by The Times, he added: “Ukraine needs equipment and funds, rather than volunteers who, although well meaning, will put further pressure on stretched resources. I am very concerned about the risk to individuals in what is a dangerous situation.
“Serving personnel should also be reminded that as members of the British armed forces, regular or reserve, you are not authorised to travel to Ukraine to support the conflict against Russia in any form, whether you are on leave or not.”
The army confirmed last week that a “small number of individual soldiers” had disobeyed orders and gone absent without leave to join the fighting.
