Midnight. The radar screens at Poland’s Operational Command light up like a switchboard. Across the border in Ukraine, the sky fills with roughly 600 Russian drones and 90 missiles — cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, every category of aerial threat Moscow can throw. It is the largest combined strike since 7 September, and the shockwaves are heading west. Within minutes, the order goes out. Poland scrambles every available F-16 fighter jet. NATO airborne early warning aircraft surge into the sky. Ground-based Patriot batteries and radar stations along the 535-kilometre Polish-Ukrainian border snap to maximum alert. Airspace over southeastern Poland is temporarily restricted. For the next several hours, the Polish Armed Forces operate at a tempo not seen since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. No Russian weapon crosses into Polish territory. But the margin of safety is measured in kilometres, not hundreds of kilometres — and every officer on that border knows it.

Roughly 600 Drones, 90 Missiles, One Night

Ukraine’s Air Force confirmed the staggering scale of the assault on the morning of 25 May. Russia launched a saturation campaign targeting deep-theatre infrastructure and civilian population centres across 16 locations. Ukrainian defenders performed remarkably under the onslaught, downing or suppressing the vast majority of the approximately 600 drones and intercepting more than half of the 90 missiles launched. But five missiles and 31 drones got through. In a country where every impact means destroyed homes, shattered hospitals, and severed power grids, five missiles are five too many.

The bombardment followed a pattern that Polish air defence commanders have become grimly familiar with: cruise missiles launched from strategic bombers over the Caspian Sea, Kalibr missiles from Black Sea warships, Iskander ballistic missiles from Belarus, and the ever-present Shahed-series drones flying low and slow from the east. The threat axis that brings these weapons closest to NATO territory runs directly along Poland’s southeastern border — the Lublin-Rzeszów corridor.

Poland’s Iron Wall

The Polish response was immediate and comprehensive. The Operational Command scrambled pairs of F-16C Block 52+ fighters from bases including Krzesiny and Łask. A NATO Boeing E-3 Sentry airborne early warning aircraft provided the high-altitude radar picture, vectoring the Polish jets into patrol orbits along the border. On the ground, Patriot PAC-3 batteries — deployed to eastern Poland following the November 2022 Przewodów incident, when a Ukrainian air defence missile landed on Polish soil and killed two farm workers — elevated their launchers and locked their radars onto the incoming tracks. Short-range Oerlikon Skyshield and NASAMS units covered lower altitudes. Airspace over parts of southeastern Poland was temporarily restricted, forcing civilian traffic to reroute. The restriction was lifted within hours once the bombardment subsided and no airspace violations were detected.

The New Normal on NATO’s Eastern Flank

This was not the first time Poland has scrambled fighters in response to a Russian barrage. Newsweek and ABC News have documented multiple similar incidents since the full-scale invasion, each triggered by large-scale Russian strikes that send debris, drones, or stray missiles dangerously close to the 535-kilometre border. What made the overnight 24–25 May scramble notable was its scale: the deployment of all available tactical aviation assets, the maximum alert posture across the entire ground-based air defence network, and the temporary airspace closure. For Poland, the war in Ukraine is not a distant conflict watched on television. It is a physical threat that triggers fighter scrambles in the middle of the night, puts Patriot batteries on combat alert, and forces civilian aircraft to divert from their routes. The Polish Armed Forces have adapted to this reality with the kind of systematic readiness that only comes from practice — and from the uncomfortable knowledge that the next Russian strike package might not stop at the border. The overnight scramble is over. The fighters land. The alert level drops. But nobody in the Operational Command expects this to be the last time. Sources: Kyiv Post, Newsweek, ABC News, TVP World, Polish Armed Forces Operational Command