Russian Drones: Violation of Polish Airspace

Oliver Ryan Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Al Carns]

The intelligence agencies will be able to provide the best analysis of this attack, so I will not jump to conclusions on the intentions behind it. It has, however, been clear for several years now that there has been consistent testing of NATO as a whole, whether that is 20,000 cyber-attacks from hostile states in the past two years or the use of chemical or radiological weapons on UK soil, to name just two of the litany of incidents. I fully support the Ukrainian strategy of fight and talk to keep the pressure on the Russians to ensure that they come to the table. I fully support a US-led peace process, but the Ukrainians’ view must be central, and they must lead it from their perspective.

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am glad to hear the Minister’s resolve and, indeed, the whole House’s united condemnation and shock at these outrageous attacks. The UK must stand firm with NATO, with Poland and with Europe, and we must increase our support for Ukraine and its neighbours including Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Lithuania and elsewhere. Following on from the previous question, what steps has the Minister taken to review our defences in the light of recent events?

[Al Carns]

First, we are fully in support of our NATO allies and, of course, our Baltic allies. The last time article 4 was invoked was 2022, when it was invoked by many of our Baltic allies on the invasion of Ukraine. It has been invoked eight times, with the most recent instance, obviously, being this morning. I am not going to give the details of our air defence operational capabilities here, but we do have a suite of capabilities. If Members read the strategic defence review and the defence industrial strategy, they will see that there is a large proportion on industrial rebuild here in the UK and supporting our allies with joint ventures and partnerships to re-establish the military industrial base of Europe in these unprecedented times, and central to that will be air defence.