As the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defense, the first thing I'd like to know is what exactly happened in Poland. Was it a swarm of stray drones, a deliberate escalation by Russia or a test of NATO's response capabilities?

In the intelligence world, there's a saying: one can happen, but two is no longer a coincidence. This was an unprecedented airspace violation in terms of scale. There have been individual cases before, drones routed through Poland or Romania and sent against Ukraine, but never on this scale.

It's clearly part of the war. The war against Ukraine has been full-scale since February 2022. And a war against Ukraine is also a war against Europe — so in part, this is directly connected.

Has Poland now been drawn into the war?

I think that's a bit premature. We're not talking about a direct armed conflict.

What is NATO's reaction? How are NATO's Western allies framing this — what, in the end, was it?

NATO's response can be divided into two phases: military and political. The military reaction kicked in immediately, just as procedures and rules require. Allies responded, in addition to Poland's own aircraft, with both air surveillance and air defense measures. Air defense units were also activated. An Italian aircraft stationed with us in Ämari went to assist Poland, covering Lithuanian airspace. That data was then relayed to fighter jets and ground-based air defense units — in other words, it did its job very well.

The political phase began when Poland requested Article 4 consultations that same late evening. By the next morning, while the drone defense operation was still practically underway, the North Atlantic Council was already holding Article 4 discussions. These, in turn, feed back into the military phase and the next step from there is the Eastern Sentry operation.

Why were only four or five drones shot down? There were 19 in total.

It all depends on the situation. Each case — even if drones arrive as a swarm — is unique. It depends on the pilots' decisions, the environment and the resources available. If a drone is seen heading toward a field, then let it fall in the field. If it doesn't threaten anyone, it's allowed to continue.

Could one reason be that these drones didn't carry warheads?

At the time, no one could really say. Objects are in the air, the objects are hostile and they must be dealt with as procedures and rules require.

German media have claimed that the drones were flying toward NATO bases. Is there information about that? Is it true?

When 19 drones are in the air, all of them must be dealt with. Where they were headed is something that investigations must determine. Wreckage, debris, electronics — all of this will be pieced together by experts and also assessed against intelligence. That work is ongoing.

Have Russia and Belarus claimed responsibility for these drones?

Russia's representative at the UN Security Council denied it, but with Russia I always apply the principle: don't trust, always verify. When you're dealing with a serial liar and repeat offender, for me, Moscow does not have the privilege of presumption of innocence. They should be the ones bending over backwards to prove that things didn't happen the way they appear to have happened.

Even if claims from the east say that these drones were intended for Ukraine and their trajectories were disrupted by electronic interference, that cannot be believed?

In any case, the fact that Russia attacks Ukraine with 400 drones is completely unacceptable. This is a major war. We should feel no relief about that. We cannot let our focus drift. A major war is being waged against a European country, a democratic country that wants to join the EU and NATO. Any excuse like "we were just trying to hit the neighbor" is unacceptable. Our real goal should be to help Ukraine even more.

Many critics say that U.S. President Donald Trump's reaction has been relatively restrained, considering that nearly 20 drones entered the territory of one of his closest NATO allies.

The U.S. ambassador to the Security Council confirmed that Americans stand alongside their allies. There is an entire U.S. brigade on Polish soil. Special Representative Kellogg, who was in Kyiv over the weekend, called things exactly what they are. SACEUR, who visited Tallinn, also delivered very clear messages that they stand with us.

Is Poland's and the allies' reaction sufficient to prevent a similar situation in the future?

A new operation was announced Friday evening. In fact, NATO has been reinforcing its eastern flank ever since the start of the war in Ukraine. Air defense and protection have been strengthened. Units are already here — we have Italians with long-range F-35 fighters, along with very modern and high-quality air defense systems. With this first reaction, several NATO members declared they would send more fighter jets to Poland, and under the same operation, additional surveillance and defense systems will likely be deployed to the eastern flank.

Does that mean more equipment and systems will also be brought to Estonia, so we can monitor even smaller drones at the edge of our airspace?

Work is underway. I won't go into details yet, but we are moving and must move much faster to build that sense of security here.

Does this whole response mean that NATO has opened the door to more forcefully engaging drones that cross the border? Because we saw in Romania that a drone was allowed to fly around for about 50 minutes without being shot down.

There have been isolated incidents before. But this week's reaction, where drones were shot down by NATO — because the Dutch, who were hunting with their F-35 fighters, had been sent there by NATO — that is a first. Turkey once shot down a Russian aircraft, but that was a national initiative, with a NATO member acting, not NATO as an organization.

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