Radosław Sikorski upbraids Moscow for being “incapable of living in peace” with its neighbors following a series of incursions into NATO airspace.
Russia shouldn’t complain at the United Nations if its missiles or aircraft are shot down after entering NATO airspace, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski warned Moscow on Monday.
Sikorski was speaking at an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council in New York. The summit was convened after three Russian military jets entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes on Sept. 19 before being repelled by Italian F-35s representing NATO.
“I have only one request to the Russian government: If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on NATO territory, please don’t come here to whine about it,” Sikorski said. “You have been warned.”
Not to be outdone, Sikorski sent a further barb Moscow’s way in New York: “We know you don’t care for international law, and you are incapable of living in peace with your neighbors. Your insane nationalism contains a lust for domination that will not cease until you realize that the age of empires is over and that your empire will not be rebuilt.”
The Russians claimed they have not been over NATO territory. If they come again, shoot them down and look where they land. Case closed.
Only because they believe it should be their territory.
Debris from plains that are shot down don’t land directly below where they were shot down.
Sure, they land tens or hundreds of km from where they were shot down. Makes sense.
This isn’t WWIi, modern jets drop like stones. But the commentor seems to mean impact debris field. You explode something t doesn’t all fly forward with the jet, it flies backwards too.
And he is implying that incursions are tens of kilometers inside the territory, not a couple of meters. So if debris flies a couple of km backward, they still land in NATO territory
This. And it is not really predictable where they go, depends on which parts get damaged and how
That may be true, but while parts and pieces of downed aircraft may land over a mile or two from an incident based on altitude (they are no longer flying, they are falling), most airspace incursions are not happening just over the border but further inside the defending territory. It takes time for responding fighter jets to scramble and confront the invasive aircraft. This is occurring while traveling at high speed. So the likely answer is that they are not a mile inside of the airspace, but tens of miles at least. It should be no trouble to discern over where the incursion took place.