Poland calls Starlink fire sabotage as Russia hybrid threat grows — SkimNews
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- Poland's Deputy PM Krzysztof Gawkowski labeled a Wednesday night fire at a Starlink satellite station in Masovian Voivodeship as deliberate sabotage designed to disrupt internet access for the Ukrainian army; PM Donald Tusk said he disliked labeling it sabotage "without 100% certainty," though the station remained operational.
- Denmark's intelligence service issued a new threat assessment warning of "a low but growing risk" that Russia could launch a limited military attack against NATO, expecting an escalation of hybrid warfare in the coming months.
- Russia's hybrid campaign stretched across the region: four Russian drones crossed into Moldova's airspace with at least one exploding, one drone crashed in Romanian territory, and a Russian military helicopter briefly violated Polish airspace, forcing Poland to scramble fighter jets.
- Germany blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack on Leipzig/Halle Airport earlier this month, while France ordered a plan to protect critical infrastructure and defense industry sites.
- Russia has intensified strikes on Ukrainian cities with jet-powered drones that fly high and fast, making them harder to shoot down and giving civilians less time to react; overnight Kyiv was hit by drones, ballistic and cruise missiles that struck a bakery, pharmaceutical plant, jewellery workshop, and data centres.
- Zelensky in New York for the UN General Assembly called on the US for ballistic interceptors to "protect lives," while Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev headed to the US to meet Trump officials Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner; Russia's Lavrov told the UN Security Council there would be no pause in the war.
Why it matters: Russia is running simultaneous hybrid operations across multiple NATO fronts — a Starlink sabotage in Poland, drone incursions into Romania, a helicopter airspace violation in Poland, and a drone attempt on a German airport — testing the alliance's commitment to Ukraine while intensifying strikes on Ukrainian cities with harder-to-intercept jet-powered drones.
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