“Obviously, someone overslept”, – a Polish military expert on the violation of Polish airspace by Belarusian helicopters

2023-08-03 14:00:56

Roman Polka, a Polish military expert and former commander of the military unit of the Polish special forces “GROM”, called the flight of two Belarusian helicopters on the territory of Poland on August 1 not accidental. He gave an interview to the Ukrainian service of Radio Svaboda on this occasion.

“Pilots are smart enough to know how to use GPS and other devices, they know the territory in which they operate perfectly, the border itself is clearly visible from above, so I rule out a mistake,” said a retired Polish special forces officer.

Polka’s novel notes the mistakes of the military leadership:

“This is the second defeat. The first was at the end of last year, when a Russian missile flew over the territory of Poland. Then the operational command of the Armed Forces did not respond in time to her search and identification. This time, the Belarusian side warned about the exercises, and this should have been an alarm signal and the need to conduct exercises on the Polish side, exercises to train our anti-aircraft defense. We have effective equipment, we have the Pilica system (Polish anti-aircraft missile-artillery system. — RS), radar stations that can react, we have concentrated forces of border guards, police, and troops in place. And this means that they must immediately inform the Ministry of Defense about any actions on the border… Obviously, someone overslept.”

Roman Polka suggests that the reason for the untimely detection of the violation of Poland’s airspace may be “in the organizational culture that blocks initiatives at the lower levels of the local military leadership to inform the top management.

“In this situation, the reaction had to be concrete. The system must detect, then issue a warning signal, and if the helicopters do not respond, they must be shot down. As it was in 2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian bomber,” Roman Polka emphasizes.

The expert believes that Russia and Belarus will continue hybrid attacks and provocations. Therefore, he says, front-line Poland cannot afford a lack of vigilance, but must act in advance.

What happened in Białowieża?

In the afternoon of August 1, residents of the border town of Białowieża reported on social networks that two Belarusian Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters had flown into the country’s airspace. After the first reports about this, the Ministry of Defense of Poland denied the helicopters flying into Polish territory, but later admitted that two Belarusian helicopters violated the state border at a very low altitude and flew into Polish territory in the Białowieża area, which is why the radars did not see them. The agency noted that the Belarusian side had previously informed Poland about the exercises. NATO was informed about the incident. The Ministry of Defense of Belarus called the accusations of violation of the Polish border by Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters of the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Forces “far-fetched”. On August 1, the temporary chargé d’affaires of Belarus was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, where he was strongly protested by the incident involving Belarusian helicopters that violated the country’s airspace on August 1. The Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus stated again on August 2 that the Belarusian helicopters did not violate the state border of Poland and that the Polish helicopter came closer to the border than the Belarusian ones on August 1, the ministry said in a statement. The temporary charge d’affaires of Poland was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus. He was told about the need for dialogue to de-escalate the “already difficult situation in bilateral relations” and urged “not to inflame the situation and not to use it for the militarization of the border space,” reports the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus.