As Russia’s war on Ukraine rages on for more than 14 months, the conflict increasingly threatens to bring Moscow and U.S.-led NATO alliance into a direct military conflict.
This week, a Russian fighter plane engaged a Polish aircraft over the Black Sea, European media outlets reported Sunday afternoon. According to these reports, a Russian Sukhoi fighter jet on Friday attempted to intercept a Polish transport aircraft operating on behalf of the European Union’s border authority, Frontex.
“A Russian SU-35 jet carried out “aggressive and dangerous manoeuvres” approaching the Polish aircraft without keeping a secure distance, leading to turbulence, loss of altitude and a temporary loss of control of the plane by the Polish crew,” Reuters news agency reported citing official Polish sources.
This is not the first time Russia and Poland have been at loggerheads with each other since the beginning of the Ukraine war. In November 2022, an escalation involving the West was feared when a soviet-made missile landed on a Polish farm, killing two people. The missile turned out to be an errant Ukrainian missile. A military confrontation between Russia and Poland could trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which provides for collective defense if a member nation faces “armed attack” for outside.
Sky News reported the details of the incident:
A European Union border guard aircraft was on patrol over the Black Sea when a Russian SU-35 carried out “aggressive and dangerous manoeuvres”, according to a border guard spokesperson.The Polish aircraft temporarily lost control after the Russian plane crossed in front of it – just five metres from its nose – leading to turbulence and a loss of altitude, Anna Michalska said.The Russian jet approached the Polish crew three times before flying away, she added.Romanian and Spanish combat aircraft were put on standby to intervene, but this did not prove necessary.The Romanian defence ministry said the behaviour was completely unacceptable and was evidence of Russia’s “provocative” attitude in international airspace over the Black Sea.
Moscow appears to have averted a battlefield conflict after convincing Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner mercenary group, to keeps his men in the fight.
On Friday, Prigozhin threatened to pull his fighters from Bakhmut if they were not provided with enough military supplies, signaling infighting between the Wagner chief and the Russian military’s top brass. The Wagner mercenaries have played a central role in the battle for Bakhmut, a strategic town with symbolic value to both Moscow and Kyiv.
Prigozhin wanted the positions abandoned by his mercenaries to Muslim Chechen fighters. “The chief of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner on Saturday asked Moscow to let him hand over his positions in the hotspot city of Bakhmut to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov,” public broadcaster France24 reported.
Germany’s state-run DW TV reported:
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said the group has been promised more ammunition following a threat he made on Friday to withdraw his forces from Bakhmut due to a lack of support from Moscow.”They promised to give us all the ammunition and armaments we need to continue the operations,” said Prigozhin, after he earlier criticized Russia’s handling of the battle in Bakhmut in a series of angry video messages.Sunday’s statement implied Wagner would not fulfill its earlier threat of withdrawing from Bakhmut on May 10. (…)Prigozhin had threatened to “pull out Wagner units from Bakhmut because in the absence of ammunition they are facing a senseless death.” The pullout was supposed to start on May 10.
As both sides battle for air superiority, Russia and Ukraine remain locked in a drone war.
Russia reportedly staged a large-scale night-time drone strike. “Air raid alerts blared for several hours overnight into early Sunday over roughly two-thirds of Ukraine, with officials saying that air defence systems shot down a number of drones, including one over Kyiv’s airspace,” Reuters reported.
Kyiv tried to hit Russian naval assets around the occupied Crimean Peninsula. “Russia’s air defences detected and destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea overnight, the country’s defence ministry said on Sunday in a daily briefing,” the France 24 TV channel reported.
Ukrainian military on Friday claimed to have shot down a Russian hypersonic missile with the U.S. Patriot air defense system.
In May 2022, Russia reportedly introduced hypersonic missiles to the Ukrainian battlefield, first nation to uses the advanced high-velocity ballistic missile. Hypersonic missiles fly five to ten times as fast as the speed of sound, making them very hard—if not impossible—to intercept.
The Associated Press reported Friday:
Ukraine’s air force claimed Saturday to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defense systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles.Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defense systems. (…)Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile.The Kinzhal is one of the latest and most advanced Russian weapons. The Russian military says the air-launched ballistic missile has a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (about 1,250 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.
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