Poland Pushes UN on Drone Violations, but Only 46 States Sign Declaration Against Russia

Poland’s push to build international consensus over repeated Russian drone violations of its airspace has drawn only limited backing at the United Nations, exposing deep divisions in the global response to Moscow’s war in Ukraine. 

A joint declaration condemning Russia’s alleged role in nineteen incursions into Polish skies secured the support of just 46 of the UN’s 193 member states.

Poland Pushes UN on Drone Violations. Via: Nitton 57

Signatories included major Western powers such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea, alongside Poland and Ukraine. Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Spain, Norway, Hungary, and Georgia also endorsed the statement. 

But the lack of wider support underlines how much of the world remains either neutral or aligned with Moscow despite NATO’s alarm.

Poland’s Armed Forces reported destroying multiple unmanned aerial vehicles overnight on September 10, saying nineteen violations of its airspace had been recorded. 

Warsaw requested NATO consultations under Article 4 of the alliance’s founding treaty. Prime Minister Donald Tusk branded the incident proof of Russia’s willingness to escalate the conflict beyond Ukraine.

The Russian defense ministry insisted it had targeted only Ukrainian military sites in Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnitsky, Zhitomir, Vinnitsa, and Lviv, and denied planning any strikes on Polish territory. 

Moscow said the drones’ maximum range was 700 kilometers, and offered consultations with Warsaw “on this topic.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the violations “dangerous and unacceptable,” though he stopped short of labeling them intentional. 

European leaders, however, see a pattern. Zelenskyy warned this week that Russia’s drone routes are “always calculated” and that the repeated breaches mark “an obvious expansion of the war.”

Russia’s diplomats have sought to flip the narrative, portraying Ukraine as unwilling to pursue peace. UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya accused President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of “renouncing peace initiatives” to maintain Western backing, while another Russian official claimed President Vladimir Putin had offered Zelenskyy “security guarantees” for a potential visit to Moscow. 

Kyiv has rejected such overtures, instead deepening military coordination with Western allies.

Beyond the immediate drone dispute, Europe’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned that Russia, China, North Korea, and Belarus are reshaping the global order “back to one where power decides who rules.” 

Speaking after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, she said the West must act faster and in unison to counter that axis.

With NATO on alert and the UN split, the drone incidents highlight the thin line between deterrence and escalation. For Warsaw, nineteen violations in one night were not just a security breach but a test of whether collective defense is more than a treaty clause.