��������

WARSAW: Polish MiG-29 fighter aircraft intercepted a Russian reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea on Thursday in the second such incident this week, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
Poland’s army said on Wednesday that Polish jets had intercepted a Russian aircraft flying a reconnaissance mission in international airspace over the Baltic Sea on Tuesday.
“Today MiG-29s intercepted a Russian reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said, describing it as just like the incident on Tuesday.
The Polish Army Operational Command later described the incident on social media platform X.
“On October 30, 2025, before 9.00 a.m., the on-duty pair of MiG-29 fighters of the (Polish) Air Force carried out another interception this week of a Russian Federation reconnaissance aircraft Il-20 conducting a flight over the Baltic Sea,” it said.
“The aircraft, flying in international airspace without a filed flight plan and with its transponder turned off, was intercepted, identified, and escorted out of the area of responsibility. There was no violation of Polish airspace.”
Countries on NATO’s eastern flank have been on high alert for potential airspace incursions since September when three Russian military jets violated Estonia’s airspace for 12 minutes, days after more than 20 Russian drones had entered Polish airspace.

KYIV: Ukraine is intensifying its efforts to defend the strategic hub of Pokrovsk, aiming to secure key supply and evacuation routes and root out Russian infantry infiltrating the city, the top army commander said on Thursday.
Oleksandr Syrskyi said he visited the area to meet his troops as Russia — almost four years into its invasion of Ukraine — continued to increase its assaults.
He dismissed Moscow’s assertion that its forces had trapped the Ukrainian troops inside the eastern stronghold. “The enemy infantry, avoiding combat, is gathering in urban areas and changing locations, so the primary task is to locate and destroy them,” Syrskyi said on the Telegram app.
Russia has been inching toward Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region for more than a year, slowly but steadily taking control of the small villages to its south.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s general staff said that at least 200 Russian military personnel entered the city in separate groups as small-arms firefights raged in the former logistics hub. Ukraine was taking steps to “strengthen the stability of defenses” in the city and aimed at bolstering its logistics by improving defense of supply and evacuation routes, Syrskyi said.
“The main priority is to save the lives of our soldiers,” he said. Logistics for the city were complicated due to Russia’s FPV drones “but possible,” Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps operating in the area said in a statement on Facebook. The brigade added that Russia mostly used infantry to attack Pokrovsk, but also deployed armed vehicles to advance on Myrnohrad, around 6 km (4 miles) to the northeast.