Russia has been planning acts of ‘air terror’ against airlines worldwide, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sensationally claimed on Wednesday as he met with Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Warsaw.
Tusk accused Moscow of staging sabotage and diversion on Polish soil and beyond.
”All I can say, and I will not go into details, but I can confirm the validity of these fears, is that Russia has been planning acts of air terror, and not only against Poland, but against airlines all over the world,” Tusk told reporters.
It comes just weeks after Russia was accused of shooting down an Azerbaijan Airlines plane over its soil, before the plane crash landed in Kazakhstan, killing 83.
Government sources blamed Russia but said they did not think it was done on purpose.
Ten years ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was also shot down over eastern Ukraine in territory controlled by Russian and Russia-led forces, killing 298, including 80 children.
A Joint Investigation Team found that the plane was hit by a Russian missile from the Russian 53rd Anti-aircraft Brigade.
The allegation comes amid growing fears Putin could be plotting to use ‘hybrid warfare’ to undermine Ukraine’s backers in the West.
Defence officials warned in November that Europe remains ‘totally unprepared’ to deal with such threats, lacking the resources to effectively counter sabotage, arson, assassination and attacks on infrastructure.
A former senior European official told the Guardian Europe could expect more ‘hybrid’ attacks to unfold on the continent in the wake of the American decision to permit usage of long-range ATACMS missiles against targets deep inside Russia.
Russia has been accused of trying to destabilize the West and allies since the war in Ukraine began by allegedly ‘weaponizing mass migration’ along its western border, sabotaging Nord Stream pipelines providing Europe with gas, influencing elections in Moldova and Georgia, and jamming aircraft GPS.
The cutting of crucial underseas telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea in November generated outrage and stark warnings about Russia’s ability to allegedly interfere in European affairs.
A 135-mile internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island went out of service, according to a local supplier, before a 745-mile cable running from Helsinki to Rostock, Germany went offline.
Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were investigating ‘an incident (that) immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage’ before European ministers put together a joint statement blaming Russia on Tuesday.
UK and EU ministers said Russia’s hybrid attacks were ‘escalating’ and ‘unprecedented’ in scale, posing security risks. The German cabinet has since agreed plans to allow the army to shoot down suspicious drones after several sightings over military sites.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that ”especially since Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine, we have seen that drones are being used more and more frequently, which poses an increasing challenge for the police and their current technology.”
The ministry said, ”Security services have noted that reports of sightings of uncooperative drones over critical infrastructure and military properties in Germany are increasing.”
”Espionage or sabotage are regularly considered as a possible reason,” it added in a statement, as tensions between Moscow and Berlin continue to run high.
Under current regulations, soldiers can assist the police in forcing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to change direction or land, threaten to shoot it down or fire warning shots.
But under the new proposals, a drone could be shot down by the army if it is believed the device is being ”used against the lives of people or against a critical facility, and the use of armed force is the only means of averting this present danger,” the ministry said.
Poland, with a deeply scarred history with Russia, made overtures to redress historic tensions with Ukraine Wednesday as Donald Tusk stood defiant against the perceived threat from Moscow.
Speaking at a press conference at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister in Warsaw Wednesday, Tusk vowed to use his country’s presidency of the EU to push forward with Ukraine’s membership quest.
”We will break the standstill we have in this issue,” Tusk told reporters in Warsaw, as he stood alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. ”We will accelerate the accession process.”
Poland now holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, the 27-member bloc that Ukraine aspires to join, and Warsaw will have the influence to put the issue high on the agenda for the next half year.
Zelenskyy was in Poland on Wednesday after the two countries reached an agreement under which Ukraine will allow the exhumation of some Polish victims of World War II-era massacres by Ukrainian nationalists, a longstanding source of tensions.
Zelenskyy’s visit came just days after Tusk announced progress on starting exhumations.
Although Poland has been one of Ukraine’s most stalwart supporters since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly three years ago, the issue of the Polish victims lying in mass graves in the Ukrainian region of Volhynia eight decades after they were brutally killed has left a festering bitterness among many Poles.
Tusk, in power for more than a year, faces domestic pressure to show progress on an issue of continued importance to many people in Poland.
It is particularly important as his party’s candidate in a presidential election in May is expected to face a strong challenge from a nationalist opposition candidate.
Standing next to Zelenskyy, Tusk said the two sides are ”finding a common language and methods of action on the issue of the Volhynian crime and sensitive issues of our history.
”We will help Ukraine, but we will also look after our national interests and this is obvious to both sides.”
