According to General Dominique Trinquand, former head of the French military mission to the UN, the Russian missile launch is not necessarily intentional, even if the Kremlin can use it to serve its interests.
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Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack against Ukraine on Sunday March 24, targeting the capital kyiv and the Lviv region in the west of the country. Poland denounced the violation of its airspace by one of the Russian missiles. One of the cruise missiles launched violated Polish airspace for around forty seconds before leaving it, the Polish army said on Sunday.
For General Dominique Trinquand, former head of the French military mission to the UN, this shot is not necessarily intentional, even if Russia can use it to serve its interests. “The Russians probably knew that it would pass close to the border and at the same time allowed them to test the system”he analyzes.
franceinfo: What is the margin of error on the trajectory? This could have significant consequences, especially since Poland is a member of NATO…
Dominique Trinquand: Much depends on the missiles, of course. And Russian missiles have repeatedly shown that they are relatively accurate. So it is not impossible that it is bad programming, but also not impossible that the jamming, which is done to prevent them from striking, disrupts them and that they move away from their trajectory. But given the proximity of the Polish border, the more you strike, the more you risk incidents of this type. The Polish reaction marks both its ability to of course identify a missile approaching its airspace, but at the same time its ability to react quickly by summoning the Russian ambassador for explanations and to be very firm on -with regard to these acts committed by the Russian army.
On a purely military level, the Polish army monitors the trajectory of Russian missiles on a daily basis. Can it react in the event of a serious threat?
Much depends on where the missile passes. The Polish air defense cannot cover the entire territory so I think there may be some holes there. And [une violation de l’espace aérien pendant] 39 seconds is still very, very short. So, at that time, was there no patrol in the air and therefore a delay that was a little too long to intervene? I don’t know. In any case, we couldn’t avoid a missile falling, but it would be one and not two.
We also know that intimidation is part of war. What happened last night, could that be part of it?
Intimidation, I don’t think so, because it doesn’t intimidate many people when a missile spends 30 seconds in Polish airspace. On the other hand, that this tests the defensive system, in particular the capacity of radars to identify them and the Polish reaction capacity, yes, it is entirely possible.
When we see how Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of events to write his truth, can we imagine that the Russian president is using this violation of Polish airspace to provoke Westerners?
I would separate the two cases. Because indeed, President Putin is at war now, his spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said so, he spoke of “war” and no longer a special military operation. Putin is at war with Ukraine, so he is not interested in having a second enemy, the Islamic State. This is why he wants his people to understand that there is war, and therefore rising tensions, which will allow him to toughen up his regime and take a certain number of measures. But one enemy is enough. And as for NATO, it is an ideological enemy, but he knows there is no interest in coming up against NATO militarily. As much as the use of the attack to mark that his war is still against Ukraine is truly President Putin’s desire, clashing with NATO is not in his interest.