The Polish military has scrambled aircraft, presumably in response to actions by the Russian army in Ukraine, the Polish armed forces operational command said on Monday.
“Due to strikes by the Russian Federation on the central territories of Ukraine, conducted using air attack assets, military aviation is proactively operating in Polish airspace,” the statement read.
The command noted that these actions by Poland are preventive in nature and aimed at “protecting Polish airspace, particularly in the eastern part of the country .”
On September 21, the news portal NaTemat reported that frequent fighter jet sorties, ostensibly prompted by Russian aviation activity in Ukraine, are proving very costly for Polish taxpayers.
According to official data from the Polish Defense Ministry and the ministry’s responses to various parliamentary inquiries in recent years, the cost of one flight hour for a Polish F-16 fighter jet is 76,000–77,000 zlotys ($21,000).
In addition to this, the airports in the Polish cities of Lublin and Rzeszow briefly suspended flights due to active military flight operations, according to the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (PANSA).
Some time later, PANSA said that the airports have resumed flight operations.
Later in the day, the command said that the military aviation operations had concluded.
“Military aviation operations in Polish airspace … have concluded, and ground-based air defense and radar detection systems have returned to standard operations,” the statement read.
The Polish military also added that no violation of Polish airspace had occurred.