Poland’s foreign minister has presented the UK parliament with an Iranian drone used by Russia in its ongoing war in Ukraine.
On a trip to London on Tuesday – his 100th trip abroad since becoming foreign minister in 2023 – Radosław Sikorski unveiled an Iranian Shahed-136 drone that was downed in Ukraine during an address to British lawmakers where the Polish diplomat urged continued support for Kyiv.
Iran, a Kremlin ally, has long denied supplying Moscow with its Shahed kamikaze drones for use against Ukraine, but the Iranian-made unmanned aircraft are frequently shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.
Sikorski in February accused Iran’s ambassador to Poland of “personally” lying to him by denying that Iran was sending the drones to Russia.In a significant indication of Warsaw’s outlook on any potential quick peace solution in Ukraine, Sikorski said: “The Ukrainians are planning this war for three years, which is prudent… We need to convince [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that we are ready to stay the course for at least those three years.
Putin ‘will wait us out’
“If [Putin] thinks that we are about to cave, about to stop supporting Ukraine, he will wait us out,” the foreign minister said, adding that when Putin sees that Ukraine has the resources to keep its state and army running thanks to continued Western support, the Russian leader “can be made to change course.”
Sikorski added that he hoped US President Donald Trump would make long-range US-made Tomahawk missiles available to Kyiv to bolster its strikes against Russian infrastructure.
He also said it would be “irresponsible” not to build defenses such as a “drone wall” on Europe’s eastern flank, adding that Moscow could “reach, unfortunately, deep into Europe.”
European Union member states on the bloc’s eastern flank last month agreed to establish a “drone wall” to help secure EU airspace following an incursion of around 20 drones into Poland overnight from September 9-10 and three Russian jets that entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes on September 19.
Moscow denies that the incidents were intentional provocations.
Tuesday’s address was not the first time that Sikorski used an Iranian-made drone to make his point to the international community, with the Polish foreign minister having presented one such aircraft at an exhibition near the UN headquarters in February.