BERLIN: The German government said Wednesday that Moscow was “testing” Ukraine’s allies after Russian drones violated Polish airspace in what it called a “very serious” incident.
Government spokesman Sebastian Hille told reporters the incident “once again shows the threat that we face” and how much Germany and other NATO countries “are being tested by Russia.”
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius meanwhile told the German parliament the drones were “clearly set on this course” and “did not have to fly this route to reach Ukraine.”
“There is absolutely no reason to believe that this was a course correction error or anything of the sort,” Pistorius said.
Poland was gathering its NATO allies for urgent talks Wednesday after the Russian drones flew into its airspace in an overnight attack on Ukraine.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk denounced the “large-scale provocation,” saying Poland had identified 19 violations of its airspace and shot down at least three drones.
Tusk said he had invoked NATO’s Article 4 under which a member can call urgent talks when it feels its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” are at risk — only the eighth time the measure has ever been used.
Pistorius said the drone incursion was an example of “what we have been talking about regularly for at least two years, namely that we are under constant threat from provocations by Russian forces.”
These threats could be seen “in the Baltic airspace, in the Baltic Sea... but also in Central Europe through hybrid attacks or through such (drone) flights,” he said.
Germany is cooperating with Poland in the form of consultations under Article 4, Pistorius added.
“We support this approach, which we consider to be correct,” he said.
Russia ‘testing’ NATO with ‘very serious’ Poland drone incident: Berlin
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Russia ‘testing’ NATO with ‘very serious’ Poland drone incident: Berlin
- “There is absolutely no reason to believe that this was a course correction error or anything of the sort,” Pistorius said.
- Poland was gathering its NATO allies for urgent talks Wednesday
’Only a miracle can end this nightmare’: Eritreans fear new Ethiopia war
- Now the fractious Horn of Africa rivals have begun trading barbs and accusations of war-mongering once more
- It is extremely difficult to gather testimonies from Eritrea, where dissidents often disappear to prison
ADDIS ABABA: Tewolde has fought multiple times for Eritrea, one of the most closed societies on Earth, and is now praying another war is not about to break out with neighboring Ethiopia.
“If the war starts, many people will go to the front and, as before, many children will lose their fathers, mothers will lose their husbands, parents will lose their children,” said Tewolde, who is in his 40s and lives in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
He fought first in the late 1990s during Eritrea’s horrific border war with Ethiopia, and more recently during clashes against rebels in the Ethiopian region of Tigray.
Now the fractious Horn of Africa rivals have begun trading barbs and accusations of war-mongering once more.
“We’ve already experienced this (before) and we know the losses are severe,” said Tewolde, who gave a false name to protect his identity in a country regularly described by rights groups as the North Korea of Africa.
It is extremely difficult to gather testimonies from Eritrea, where dissidents often disappear to prison. To obtain a few words from Tewolde, AFP had to pass questions and answers through an intermediary.
- ‘Incessant aggression’ -
Eritrea, a country of around 3.5 million, has been ruled by President Isaias Afwerki since independence from Ethiopia in 1993 and ranks near the bottom of every rights indicator.
Civilians are conscripted into the army for life or forced into a national service program that the United Nations has compared to slavery.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for signing a long-awaited peace deal with Eritrea shortly after coming to power and, in darkly ironic fashion, the two sides joined forces in the brutal war against the Tigrayans from 2020 to 2022.
Eritrea was not pleased that Ethiopia sued for peace without its input and has accused its landlocked neighbor of planning to seize its port at Assab.
For its part, Ethiopia has lately complained that Eritrea has been “actively preparing” for renewed conflict.
Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timothewos last month said that “Eritrean aggression and provocation is making further restraint more and more difficult.”
- ‘Fleeing en masse’ -
Mehari, an Eritrean in his 30s, fought in the Tigray war, where his army was accused of horrific war crimes.
“Young people are fleeing en masse to Ethiopia... and to Sudan to avoid a possible war,” he told AFP.
Another Eritrean, Luwan, left the country several years ago and now lives in an east African country, which she did not want to name for fear of reprisals against her family back home.
She says her family are terrified after a relative was summoned to a meeting and told to “prepare herself, her sons and daughters because she was told Abiy will start a war against her and the Eritrean people,” she said.
Some mothers at the meeting “still haven’t been informed about where their children are from the last war in Tigray, but still they are being asked to send their remaining children to the front,” Luwan added.
Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.
A former independence activist now in exile, researcher Mohamed Kheir Omer, said young people are split between their fear of conflict and of being overrun by Ethiopia, whose wartime atrocities are still in recent memory.
“We are torn between Isaias who does not care about his population, and Abiy who thinks only of his own legacy,” he said.
Luwan said she was desperate.
“Only a miracle can end this nightmare.”
