Poland shoots down drones in its airspace during Russian attack on Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Poland shoots down drones in its airspace during Russian attack on Ukraine

reuters.com

56 pointsconsumer45135 comments

This is significant, is it not?

This is the first time a NATO member has directly destroyed Russian (if that is the case) military hardware, since when?

edit: To answer my own question, since only 2015 when a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24.

This is significant but also in line with standard Russian behavior as we know it from the last century; they will push as long and as far as they can. Zero respect for normal diplomatic relations or smaller nations. The entire eastern half of Europe has plenty of experience with this.

There need to be some reprisals for this incursion, otherwise more Shaheds will "arrive" by "bad luck", of course.

A no-fly zone over a stretch of Western Ukraine, enforced by NATO air power, would be in place. Manned Russian aircraft don't operate there, only drones and missiles.

There is absolutely no chance that this was not exactly as planned.

One _could_ argue that GPS jamming by the Ukrainian forces is getting better at confusing Russian's systems — but I do agree in principle that this most likely part of the Russian plan.

Two of the downed drones were on pretty reasonable path to fling back into Ukraine.

https://x.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1965668064865013884

Thanks, that provides useful context.

Previously crashed drones were found with Polish SIM-cards in their 4G modems.

We don't see into the Russians' heads, but it would be very advantageous for them to be able to close the Rzeszów airport (a major NATO logistics hub in eastern Poland) for hours by sending a few cheap "oh, certainly jammed" drones in its direction.

They absolutely, under no circumstances, can be allowed to gain such capability to deny NATO/Poland its own operations on its own territory at will.

A no-fly zone 100 km into Ukrainian territory is a way to prevent them from trying this again.

> A no-fly zone 100 km into Ukrainian territory

No-fly zone should include Belarus and I would argue even Kaliningrad

You could argue that, but it isn't very plausible. These are not passive devices that operate autonomously.

Again — I think it was intentional. But for the

> These are not passive devices that operate autonomously

My understanding was that these are autonomous drones? Or rather — they have their route programmed before launch but then it's not remotely controlled.

> My understanding was that these are autonomous drones?

Not this particular model. They can be left without operator attention for a while but they will fly where they're told to fly and can change their flight path during a mission.

These are both. Shaheds/Gerbera used to be autonomous mission-based with baked flight paths, now they sometimes have cameras and internet.

Sure, but over Belarus their guidance and comms are not jammed. So either they were autonomous and not jammed when they flew into Polish airspace or they were guided and flew there on purpose. The 'unguided but jammed' combination does not work for the flightpath that they took.

BTW, they can be taken over post launch as a rule, this is one of the things that makes them a bit harder to take down, they don't follow a predictable trajectory and can react whilst underway. There are also jet powered versions that are a lot faster that are harder still to take down. The ones over Poland this morning all seem to be the prop based ones. There is also talk of at least one missile.

Yes, very much so. I was passing through Eastern Poland a few weeks ago and saw a patriot deployed in a field, up and running and ready to go. That's a first as long as I've traveled, to see active military resources deployed on NATO allied territory outside of an exercise.

Isn't it the one along the road to Hel?

Lots of peeple see this one, as Hel is a major tourist destination.

I was there when a Russian ship tried to cut an underwater powerline, the back-and forth of Navy ships and helicopters lasted a few hours.

Super impressive.

No, different one between two major Polish cities. I'm not going to do the russians work for them by detailing exactly where I spotted it and I highly doubt many people would have seen it the way it was camouflaged.

It's interesting how many people seem to be under the impression that 'NATO isn't responding' because they're not giving Putin what he wants: direct involvement of NATO so he has another excuse to escalate (as if he needs one). Meanwhile, you can't move half a centimeter in all of Eastern Poland without an update on some situation monitor somewhere.

You get a very nice but extremely pointy SMS when you approach the Suwalki gap that leaves absolutely no room for doubt that you are entering a militarized zone and that there are standing orders to use live weapons so obey any and all instructions immediately and without so much as a 'but'. It's a bit funny because I have family in the region and was already aware of it but the degree to which they are bluntly informing the general public now is a clear indication that things have heated up considerably.

Road to Hel

Is there anyone who can explain why two attacks happened yesterday, but only one of them is allowed to be discussed here?

I think you raise a valid point and I've seen it multiple times already that links/stories about Israel's crimes tend to be flagged on HN and not shown to most users. I don't have a good explanation.

So are stories about Russian attacks on Ukraine. This one is the exception so far and likely only because it involves a NATO member. And I still wouldn't be surprised if it got flagged.

It's a relatively slow thread without an obviously provocative title, that's probably the only reason it hasn't been flagged yet.

> I don't have a good explanation.

Russians are somewhat shut off from the Internet and HN is blocked there as far as I know. And although polls say they support the war, it seems more like passive support/apathy than an active support of their government.

On the other hand, Israel does not significantly censor the Internet and the Israeli citizens largely support their government, so it makes sense they influence the rankings disproportionately compared to Russians.

>HN is blocked there as far as I know

No, it is not

Tech and the occupation of Palestinian territories have enough overlap to warrant organic self-interested flagging, and that isn't even accounting for any coordinated or state-sponsored activity.

Most people don't like seeing their employment, the stock they hold or their retirement plans stained by this kind of shit hitting the fan. It's one thing to let some token CEO boogeyman catch some flak every now and then, and another thing to be made aware of your own complicity by holding MSFT or HPQ or whatever.

There's the guidelines

>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, ... unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

Russian stuff being shot down in NATO countries is kind of new?

Also there are two unflagged Qatar stories if that's that you were thinking of? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45187486 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45183124

Finally, there is a response. In the past days several drones flew through Polish airspace on their way to Ukrane.

Putin is constantly escalating in this war. I read that the missile that hit the government building a few days ago, did not explode. There was but a luke warm response to that in the west. It won't surprise me, if another attempt will follow.

https://archive.is/eDJUa

Multiple interceptions over 40km deep, no victims, one building damaged.

I hope my gov invokes Nato Article 5. We cant be handling this BS alone.

New drone crash site found in Opoczno, over 400km in straight line from Belarus border. 1/3 way to Berlin, record holder is still 2022 KH-55 that fell in Bydgoszcz and made Germany send Patriot to Poland.

I sent you mail.

If NATO wanted to confront Russia directly, they would have done it already. The truth is that NATO has no desire to go to war with Russia directly, a proxy war in Ukraine is the most NATO is prepared to do.

Triggering article 5 would do nothing and only show everyone how toothless it is. Besides article 5 does nothing else than calling members to discuss the matter and further plans.

Hang in there. I saw three airports were closed for a while, not sure if that is still the case (Rzeszow, Warsaw, Lublin). I have a lot of family and friends in the Eastern part of Poland all the way up to the border.

It looks like NATO assets were already used in the response, a dutch tanker flew to refuel the F35s that were in on this.

Poland is also calling for article 4.

Reminder that Agent Krasnov a few days ago, was applauding Putin in US soil. This is the type of indulgent behavior that emboldens war criminals and endagers both Europe and the US.

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