incursion

Sept. 22 (UPI) — The United Nations Security Council is to convene Monday to address Russia’s breach last week of Estonia airspace, according to the European union and NATO member.

Kremlin MiG-31 fighter jets flew through Estonian airspace for 12 minutes on Friday, the latest transgression of a foreign national’s airspace in recent weeks during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Estonia announced the U.N. Security Council meeting on Sunday, describing its mission as to address Russia’s breach of Tallinn’s “territorial integrity” and its violation of a prohibition on the threat or use of force.

“This incursion into Estonian airspace is yet another dangerous act aimed at escalating regional and global tensions, as Russia — a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council — continues its war of aggression against Ukraine,” Tallinn’s foreign ministry said in a statement on X.

“Russia’s reckless and aggressive actions, and its repeated violations of international law and the principles of the U.N. Charter, require a strong and united international response.”

The Friday breach saw three MiG-31s travel within 12 1/2 miles of downtown Tallinn, where there are government buildings of NATO allies and EU member states, according to Jonatan Vseviov, secretary general of Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He called the breach a “pattern of unacceptable behavior” observed in recent weeks with repeated air and drone incidents in the region.

Last week, Romania summoned the Russian ambassador to Bucharest after Moscow’s drone incursion into its airspace on Sept. 13. It flew within Romanian airspace for 50 minutes.

Before that, Poland shot down at least three of 19 Russian drones that had breached its airspace overnight Sept. 9.

Vseviov chastised Russia over the Friday incursion, saying “it brought aircraft dangerously close to our capital.”

Estonian Defense Forces said NATO F-35s were scrambled in response.

It was Russia’s fourth violation of Estonia’s airspace this year, it said.

“By openly violating Estonian airspace, Russia undermines principles vital to the security of all U.N. member states. When such actions are committed by a permanent member of the Security Council, they must be addressed by that very body” Estonia Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement.

“Tomorrow’s U.N. Security Council meeting is essential.”

Israel has repeatedly entered Syria since the fall of al-Assad and has carried out air raids across the country.

Israeli troops have carried out a ground operation in Syria’s southeastern Deraa province, Syria’s state news agency reported, the latest incursion in the neighbouring country as it also continues air raids against Damascus in various locations.

Soldiers also carried out searches in the Saysoun and Jamlah towns on Sunday, which are adjacent to the 1974 ceasefire line that was meant to separate Israeli and Syrian troops.

On Saturday, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the country’s interim president, said talks with Israel have begun to re-establish a 1974 agreement which was concluded after the 1973 war between the countries.

Israel and Syria have held direct talks in recent months, and al-Sharaa has ruled out normalisation. The talks are aimed at halting Israel’s aggressive actions towards Syria and reaching some kind of security deal.

Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites and assets across Syria since the fall of former leader Bashar al-Assad in December. It has also expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarised buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.

On Tuesday, Syria “strongly condemned” Israeli attacks on several sites in and around Homs city in the west of the country and around the coastal city of Latakia.

The Israeli air attacks represent “a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic”, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

While Israel had for years waged a secretive campaign of aerial bombardment against Syria’s military infrastructure, its attacks on its neighbour have ramped up since the war on Gaza and the fall of al-Assad.

In late August, six Syrian soldiers were killed in an Israeli drone attack on Damascus, which came a day after a ground incursion into Syrian territory by Israeli troops.

The attacks on Syria come amid Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promotion of a vision for a “Greater Israel“, a concept supported by ultranationalist Israelis that lays claim to the occupied West Bank and Gaza, as well as parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

After violence in southern Syria’s Suwayda on July 13 between Bedouin tribal fighters and Druze factions, government forces were sent in to quell the fighting. But the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and bombed the heart of the capital, Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

Romania has scrambled fighter jets after a drone breached the country’s airspace during a Russian attack on neighbouring Ukraine, its Ministry of National Defence said, as Kyiv accused Moscow of expanding its war.

The Romanian move on Saturday came as Poland also deployed aircraft and closed an airport in the eastern city of Lublin over the threat of a drone attack.

Ukraine’s European Union neighbours have been on guard since Poland shot down Russian drones in its airspace earlier this week, with the backing of aircraft from its NATO allies.

Romania’s Defence Ministry said it detected the drone incursion late on Saturday, and scrambled two F-16 fighter jets as well as two Eurofighters – part of German air policing missions in Romania – while also warning citizens to take cover.

It said the jets followed the drone until “it disappeared from the radar” near the Romanian village of Chilia Veche.

Minister of National Defence Ionut Mosteanu said the F-16 pilots came close to taking down the drone before it left the country’s airspace, adding that helicopters would survey the area near the border to look for potential drone parts.

“But all information at this moment indicates the drone exited airspace to Ukraine,” he told the private television station Antena 3.

Romania, an EU and NATO state which shares a 650km (400-mile) border with Ukraine, has had Russian drone fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the social media platform X that data showed the drone breached about 10km (6 miles) into Romanian territory and operated in NATO airspace for about 50 minutes.

He alleged that the Russian military knows exactly where its drones are headed and how long they can operate in the air.

“It is an obvious expansion of the war by Russia – and this is exactly how they act,” Zelenskyy said.

“Sanctions against Russia are needed. Tariffs against Russian trade are needed. Collective defence is needed.”

Sweden also condemned the drone incursion in Romania.

Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard wrote on X that the breach was “another unacceptable violation of NATO airspace”.

“Sweden stands in full solidarity with Romania as a NATO Ally and EU Member State. We are always ready to contribute further to the deterrence and defence of the Alliance.”

NATO had announced plans to beef up the defence of Europe’s eastern flank on Friday, after Poland shot down drones that had violated its airspace, the first known shots fired by a member of the Western alliance during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

While Russia denies targeting Poland, several European countries, including France, Germany and Sweden, have stepped up their support for defending Polish airspace in response.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, expressed concern at the Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace, but said that it remained unclear if it was a deliberate act by Russia.

“We think it’s an unacceptable and unfortunate and dangerous development,” Rubio told reporters before departing on a trip to Israel and the United Kingdom.

“No doubt about it: the drones were intentionally launched. The question is whether the drones were targeted to go into Poland specifically.”

Rubio said that if the drones were targeted at Poland, “if the evidence leads us there, then obviously that’ll be a highly escalatory move”.

“There are a number of other possibilities as well, but I think we’d like to have all the facts and consult with our allies before we make specific determinations,” he added.

The comments echo suggestions by US President Donald Trump that the Russian incursions into Polish airspace were a mistake.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, however, has dismissed that.

“We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it,” Tusk said on X on Friday.

Trump, meanwhile, said on Saturday that he was ready to impose major sanctions on Russia – just as soon as all NATO nations did the same thing and stopped buying Russian oil.

“I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA,” he said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump has repeatedly threatened sanctions against Russia without following through.

Poland’s president on Thursday said the Russian drone incursions into his country were not only deliberate, but they were a test of NATO’s ability to react to aerial threats. Meanwhile, Warsaw has ordered the closure of airspace along the border with Belarus and Ukraine, and NATO allies continue to provide additional air defense support.

In addition, the UN Security Council will convene tomorrow to take up the issue. Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski said his country plans to use the security council meeting to “draw the world’s attention to this unprecedented Russian drone attack on a member of the UN, EU and NATO.”

These actions come a day after Polish authorities said 19 Russian drones entered the country’s airspace, with some of them being shot down by Polish and Dutch combat aircraft. You can catch up to our reporting on the incident in our story here.

“The Russian provocation was nothing more than an attempt to test our capabilities and responses,” Karol Nowracki stated on X. “It was an attempt to check the mechanism of action within NATO and our ability to react. Thanks to the wonderful Polish pilots and our allies, Poland, which is in NATO, will neither fear nor be frightened by Russian drones.”

“We passed all of these tests,” Nawrocki told troops during a visit to the 31st Tactical Air Base in Poznań-Krzesiny in western Poland, according to the Polish Polskiradio media outlet. That base “is a key hub in Poland’s air defense effort,” the outlet added.

Polish authorities say Russian drones began to violate the country’s airspace at around 11:30 PM local time Tuesday night. The last incursion was reported at 6:30 AM local time on Wednesday. The intrusions came amid a new round of Russian drone and missile attacks on neighboring Ukraine. 

Sikorski, Poland’s Foreign Minister, subsequently said there had been 19 total airspace violations. He also said Poland has assessed that the drones “did not veer off course but were deliberately targeted.”

Pictures that have emerged so far show the drones that have been retrieved look to be Gerberas, a cheaper and simplified Russian-developed complement to variants and derivatives of the Iranian-designed Shahed-136s. Gerbera, which has a far shorter range than the Shaheds, can be configured as kamikaze drones or decoys. It is unclear whether the ones that flew into Poland were armed, although we have seen no evidence of that at this time, which would make sense considering their supposed intended mission. It is also unclear if Shaheds were used in the operation, as well.

Syria’s foreign minister accuses Israel of violating a 1974 agreement to advance its ‘expansionist and partition plans’.

Syria has condemned a new “military incursion” by Israel in the southwestern Damascus countryside area outside the capital, calling it a “grave threat to regional peace”, in the wake of the two sides recently holding talks in Paris on de-escalating the conflict in southern Syria.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani accused Israel on Monday of violating the 1974 Disengagement Agreement by establishing intelligence facilities and military posts in demilitarised areas to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.

Al-Shaibani made the remarks at an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) foreign ministers to discuss Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

The latest Israeli military action in Syria follows deadly clashes in the Druze-majority Syrian province of Suwayda, where a week of sectarian violence in July killed 1,400 people before a ceasefire put an end to the bloodshed. Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and also bombed the heart of the capital, Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

Al-Sharaa will be first Syrian leader to address UNGA

In the meantime, it was announced that Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa will speak at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September, the first Syrian leader to do so in decades, as the nation seeks to rebuild and reengage with the international community after 14 years of ruinous civil war and the fall of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad.

In the more than 50 years that the al-Assad dynasty ruled Syria, neither Hafez al-Assad nor his son, Bashar, ever addressed the annual gathering of world leaders in New York.

“He will be the first Syrian president to speak at the United Nations since former President Nureddin al-Atassi (in 1967), and the first Syrian president ever to take part in the General Assembly’s high-level week,” scheduled for September 22-30, a Syrian official told the AFP news agency on Monday.

Al-Sharaa, who took power in December after leading rebels on a lightning advance to Damascus that toppled al-Assad, remains under UN sanctions and a travel ban due to his past as a fighter, and must request an exemption for all foreign trips.

In April, al-Shaibani addressed the UN for the first time and raised his country’s new flag at the body’s New York headquarters.

Since taking power, Syria’s new authorities have gained regional and international support, both diplomatic and financial, securing critical economic lifelines to reconstruct the devastated country.

Damascus signed 12 agreements worth $14bn this month, including a $4bn agreement with Qatar’s UCC Holding to build a new airport and a $2bn deal to establish a subway in Damascus with the national investment corporation of the United Arab Emirates.

Al-Sharaa met United States President Donald Trump in May in Saudi Arabia, a week after meeting French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on his first trip to the West.

Both the US and the European Union have lifted longstanding sanctions on Syria.

Syria will hold parliamentary elections in September, a week before the UNGA meeting.

They will be the first to take place under the country’s new authorities after the fall of al-Assad. One-third of the 210 seats will be appointed by al-Sharaa, with the rest to be elected.