During an informal European Union summit in Copenhagen, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that Poland had faced “another Russian provocation,” this time near the port of Szczecin.
“I received information from Warsaw today that there was another incident near our port in Szczecin,” Tusk said during a plenary session dedicated to strengthening Europe’s defense readiness, supporting Ukraine, and boosting the bloc’s economic resilience.
According to the prime minister, Poland is experiencing recurring hostile actions in its vicinity and across the Baltic Sea. “These are Russian units, and in fact, we see new incidents in our region and on the Baltic Sea almost every week, nearly every day,” he stressed. He recalled that the most striking provocation against Poland involved drone attacks, but noted that “similar provocations occur daily along our border with Belarus.”
Just days earlier, Russia had staged a provocation near Petrobaltic’s offshore drilling platform in the Baltic Sea, when two Russian fighter jets carried out a low-altitude flyover of the installation, Poland’s Border Guard reported.
Tusk urged European leaders to abandon illusions about Russia’s actions. “We must put an end to this kind of self-deception. The first illusion has been that there is no war. Some prefer to describe it as aggression, incidents, or provocations. No—it is war. A new type of war, very complex, but it is still war,” he underlined, pointing to the operations of what he called Russia’s “shadow fleet.”
The Polish leader’s comments come as EU heads of state and government discuss ways to bolster Europe’s security architecture in light of Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine and its hybrid tactics across the region.
