Strangely disarmed, slow, perhaps disoriented by the electronic war. But very useful – perhaps too much – to the Ukrainian cause and European military ambitions. Behind, the suspicion of an episode similar to the North Stream 2 pipeline
What does the sabotage of the North Stream 2 pipeline have to do with what happened yesterday in the Polish sky? Too many things do not return to the aerial police operation which yesterday saw two F-16 Poles hunting, two Dutch F-35s, two radar planes (one of which Italian, a brand new G-550 Caew) and some helicopter.
A disproportionate force to intercept and break down a swarm of 19 drones, however slow and “mysteriously” unarmed. In fact, some intelligence sites report that those demolished – only 4, other than a great result of NATO – were devoid of explosive. And coincidentally there is no photographic tests of explosions on the places of impacts, even with a “little help” by Belarus, faithful to the Kremlin but who promptly warned Warsaw.
There is also an incontrovertible fact: those drones have no sufficient autonomy to hit the poach strategic sites. The moment is not accidental: tomorrow the military exercises of Russia and Belarus “Zapad 2025” begin near the Polish territory.
The previous one of the gas pipelines and denials of Moscow
Poles and Ukrainians are considered the authors of the sabotage to the gas pipelines of the Baltic Sea, an attack that Brussels tried to attribute to Moscow. The Kremlin denied both having wanted to hit goals in Poland and the drones made part of his arsenals.
It remains to be understood if those bombs were taking a shortcut towards Ukraine, if they had been launched to test the readiness of the western defense, or if – left for another mission – were diverted by the electronic war that affects navigation systems such as the GPS or the Russian Glonass.
Among the hypotheses there is also the one that the drones were directed to Ukraine but that Kiev’s disturbance action pushed them to Belarus up to defeat in Poland.
The political and industrial impact
However, it went, Ursula has fully grasped and the titles of the defense companies today celebrate. It also affects the use of AIM-9 missiles, from the cost of millions of dollars, or precious cannon bullets, to reduce Geran-2 drones (Russian version of the Iranians Shad) from the value of ten thousand dollars.
Nothing to complain about the take-off of the G-550 Caew of the Air Force, deployed in Latvia: the electronics that identified and traced the targets, passing the information to the F-16 and F-35, is produced and sold by Israel. A detail that certain politicians should remember when they speak of boycott: without that electronics, even economic drones could become lethal.
Timing and new technologies
Will it be a coincidence that this event arrives the day after the announcement of the USA and UK of a joint project for an anti-drone drone?
Just yesterday, Bae Systems (UK) and Lockheed Martin (USA), at the London Fair of the defense “Dsei 2025”, presented the collaboration to develop a family of autonomous air systems with initial focus on electronic war. The goal is to create a modular, adaptable, rapid to be produced and can be created by planes, land or sea.
Last Tuesday, Mbda (of which 25% is from Leonardo) also presented a unidirectional missile with a range of 800 km, which can be built with standard components and weaponable with several newspapers. Bae Systems, which owns 37.5% of Mbda together with Airbus, considers the project with Lockheed “highly complementary” to MBDA’s skills.
Ursula von der Leyen and the push to European defense
Ursula von der Leyen said Europe “should fight”. In perspective, events such as the Polish one are useful for convincing skeptics to support a European military industry that, after years of crisis, today cannot afford to slow down, especially for Germany, France and the United Kingdom (which, although not in the EU, is linked to the USA).
If Putin really launched those drones, he did a favor to the European military industry and offered Poland the opportunity to increase the impatience to Moscow: it is no coincidence that President Karol Nawrocki convened the national security council within 48 hours, while Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke of “situation closer to a conflict open from the Second World War”, but also of “not having a reason to believe that we are on the verge of war”.
