Poland’s armed forces will change procedures for dealing with aircraft and other aerial objects entering Polish airspace, allowing pilots to act without first making a visual identification of the target, Deputy Defence Minister Cezary Tomczyk has announced.
The change is intended to speed up the military response to potentially hostile incursions at a time when Poland has faced repeated airspace incidents linked to Russian military activity.
Speaking to TVN24 on Wednesday, Tomczyk said a visual check by a fighter pilot would no longer necessarily be required before weapons could be used.
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Instead, the military would still require what he described as “positive identification” of the object.
Tomczyk said that could be established through information including radar data and the behaviour and location of an aircraft.
“If the pilot has, for example, radar information and the object also enters a no-fly zone, that will be a basis for the Operational Commander and the pilot to use weapons,” he said.
He added that Poland needed to adapt its procedures when faced with what authorities considered a clear threat from Russia so that pilots had greater certainty over when they were authorised to act.
The announcement does not mean that unidentified or Russian aircraft entering Polish airspace will automatically be shot down.
Positive identification would still be required, and decisions would depend on the circumstances and the applicable military rules of engagement.
No detailed version of the revised procedures or timetable for their introduction had been made public by Wednesday evening.
Announcement follows Russian helicopter incursion
Tomczyk’s comments came on the same day that a Russian military Mi-8 helicopter briefly crossed into Polish airspace near the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Poland’s Operational Command said the helicopter entered Polish airspace north of Braniewo at 11:08 on Wednesday.
It penetrated approximately 300 metres into Polish territory and remained there for 42 seconds before leaving.
Polish radar systems tracked the aircraft and fighter jets were scrambled, while ground-based forces and air-defence assets were kept ready to respond.
The Operational Command said the nature of the incident indicated that Russia was “once again testing the readiness of our air defence”.
Polish officials did not say that the Mi-8 would have been shot down had the newly announced procedure already been in place.
The helicopter incident nevertheless highlighted the practical challenge facing Polish forces when potentially hostile aircraft cross the border only briefly.
For fast-moving aircraft, missiles or drones, requiring a fighter pilot to approach closely enough to identify a target visually can consume valuable time before a decision is made.
Poland has already streamlined weapons authorisation
The planned procedural adjustment follows earlier changes intended to shorten the military chain of command during air-defence incidents.
Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz told parliament in July that Poland had changed its rules in 2025 to allow greater use of pre-authorisation and to automate parts of the decision-making process.
He said the changes were intended to reduce bureaucracy and enable the Operational Commander and pilots to respond more rapidly when an aerial threat was detected.
During a Russian attack on Ukraine near the Polish border earlier this month, the Operational Commander also issued pre-authorisation allowing Polish forces to engage threatening objects if they approached and threatened to cross into Polish airspace.
Those arrangements are particularly significant because Poland remains formally at peace, meaning military rules governing the use of weapons differ from those that would apply during an armed conflict.
The latest change outlined by Tomczyk concerns the military procedures used to establish sufficient identification of an aerial object before force can be employed.
Growing pressure on Poland’s air defences
Poland has repeatedly activated fighter aircraft, radar systems and ground-based air defences during Russian missile and drone attacks on western Ukraine.
The country has also experienced several actual incursions.
The Braniewo helicopter incident on Wednesday followed earlier violations involving Russian missiles and drones, increasing pressure on the government and military to demonstrate that Poland can identify and, when necessary, engage objects before they pose a threat to populated areas.
At the same time, military commanders have to distinguish potentially hostile aircraft from civilian or allied traffic and consider the risks created by firing weapons over Polish territory.
Tomczyk’s announcement therefore represents an effort to shorten the response process rather than remove identification requirements altogether.
Under the approach he described, reliable radar and operational information could provide the required identification without a fighter pilot having to establish visual contact first.
The precise rules governing when such information will be considered sufficient are expected to remain largely operational rather than public.
