France and Germany moved to bolster the defence of Polish airspace on Thursday as the UN Security Council called an emergency meeting to discuss Warsaw’s accusation that Moscow launched a drone raid on its territory.

Poland branded the incident, which prompted Polish and NATO forces to shoot down several drones overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, a deliberate “unprecedented” attack on the country, NATO and the European Union.

Moscow denied targeting the country and said there was no evidence the drones were Russian.

But Polish President Karol Nawrocki warned Thursday during a visit to an airbase in western Poland that the incident was “an attempt to test the mechanism of action within NATO and our readiness to respond”.

Germany said it would “extend and expand” its participation in NATO’s Air Policing programme, to provide more cover to Polish airspace.

Its defence ministry said it would double the number of Eurofighter jets deployed to four and extend their mission by three months to the end of the year.

And French President Emmanuel Macron announced in a post on X that France would “deploy three Rafale fighter jets to contribute to the protection of Polish airspace and of NATO’s Eastern Flank together with our Allies.”

The Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Sweden each summoned their Russian ambassadors to protest the drone incident.

The UN Security Council’s South Korean presidency announced Thursday it would hold an emergency meeting to discuss Warsaw’s claim of a “violation of Polish airspace by Russia”.

It will take place on Friday at 3:00 pm (1900 GMT).

“Reckless”: NATO

Stray Russian drones and missiles have entered the airspace of NATO members, including Poland several times since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Polish officials said on this occasion, drones had violated its airspace 19 times. There were no casualties, and the damage was limited — a house and a car were destroyed.

Poland’s National Security Council met on Thursday and the defence minister was expected to brief parliament on the latest findings.

Poland boosted its security Thursday, closing air traffic along its eastern borders with Belarus and Ukraine to civilian flights up to an altitude of three kilometres (1.9 miles) until December 9.

The PAZP air traffic control agency announced that drones would also be banned.

The country had already announced ramped-up measures on the Belarus border to cope with military drills the government is carrying out with its ally Russia between September 12 and 16.

The few open border crossings with Belarus were to be closed from Friday due to the Zapad (“West”) drills.

Reacting to the closure, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement urged Poland “to consider the consequences of such destructive steps and to review its decision as soon as possible”.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Wednesday that the drone raid marked an unprecedented escalation of tension with Russia.

Tusk called a NATO meeting on Wednesday, invoking Article 4 under which a member can convene urgent talks when it feels its “territorial integrity, political independence or security” is at risk — only the eighth time the measure has been used.

A cornerstone of NATO is the principle that an attack on any member is deemed an attack on all.

NATO chief Mark Rutte denounced Moscow’s “reckless behaviour” while hailing his organisation’s response. The alliance’s air defences had done their job, he told journalists.

Unity “reaffirmed”

Both the European Union and Ukraine condemned the incident on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel said on X: “Russia’s reckless violation of Polish airspace threatens our European security.”

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky denounced the incident as “a pure provocation by the Kremlin”.

Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said in a statement: “The Russian violations are unacceptable and constitute a threat to Europe’s security.”

In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular news briefing that China “hopes that all parties concerned will properly resolve their disputes through dialogue and consultation”.

China has never denounced Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Poland is a major supporter of Ukraine and hosts more than one million Ukrainian refugees. It is also a key transit point for Western humanitarian and military aid to the country.

•  Authorities secure video images of suspect, not yet released.
•  FBI confirms two detained individuals had no involvement.
•  Trump blames radical left, vows sweeping response to killing.

The gunman who shot dead US right-wing youth leader Charlie Kirk in a targeted killing remained at large Thursday but authorities said they have video images of the suspect and have recovered a “high-powered” rifle.

Kirk, a 31-year-old superstar on the Republican right who was credited with helping Donald Trump return to the presidency last year, was shot while addressing a large crowd at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.

The killing — described by the FBI as a “targeted event”— shocked a nation already reeling from political tensions half a year into Trump’s second term.

Authorities acknowledged the gunman remained at large after having escaped into woodland.

“We’re doing everything we can to find him, and we’re not sure how far he has gone yet, but we will do our best,” FBI Special Agent Robert Bohls told a media briefing.

Authorities said they had secured quality images of the killer, who was of university age.

“We do have good video footage of this individual. We are not going to release that at this time,” said Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety.

Bohls said the presumed murder weapon had also been found.

“It is a high powered bolt action rifle. That rifle was recovered in a wooded area where the shooter had fled,” the FBI agent said.

Two people initially detained for questioning were released after officials determined they had no connection to the shooting.

‘Dark moment’

Reflecting the intensely political nature of the incident, it was Trump, rather than law enforcement authorities, who first announced to Americans that Kirk had died from his wound.

Trump then addressed the nation in a video address on social media in which he cited a “dark moment for America.”

Despite no public information about the shooter’s identity or motive, the president went on to suggest that the left wing was responsible — and to pledge a wide-reaching response.

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world´s worst mass murderers and criminals,” he said.

“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we´re seeing.”

“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity,” Trump said.

Shot in neck

Kirk was shot in the neck while speaking to the crowd and collapsed in his chair.

Students at the university described the ensuing panic— and their broader fears as political divisions deepen across the country.

“It makes me feel like I should be very careful about expressing my political ideas,” said Samuel Kimball, a software engineering student, told AFP.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, called the killing a “political assassination.”

Kirk, who supporters have hailed as a “martyr” for conservative ideals, had an outsized influence in US politics.

He co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012 to drive conservative viewpoints among young people, his natural showmanship making him a go-to spokesman on television networks.

Kirk used his enormous audiences on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to build support for anti-immigration policies, outspoken Christianity and gun ownership, and to spread carefully edited clips of his interactions during debates at his many college events.

Three months ago, a Minnesota man shot dead a Democratic lawmaker and her husband in their home, and Trump survived an assassination attempt during his election campaign in July 2024.

Vice President JD Vance was due to travel to Utah to meet Kirk’s family Thursday, a source familiar with the plans said, after he canceled a trip to New York to mark the 9/11 attacks anniversary.

STOCKHOLM: Press freedoms worldwide have declined significantly over the past five years to hit their lowest level in 50 years, a report by a democracy think tank showed Thursday.

Afghanistan, Burkina Faso and Myanmar — already among the poorest performers in press freedoms — posted the biggest falls, the report by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said.

The fourth-biggest drop was in South Korea, it added, citing “a spike in defamation cases initiated by the government and its political allies against journalists, and raids on journalists’ residences”.

“The current state of democracy in the world is concerning,” IDEA Secretary General Kevin Casas-Zamora, told AFP.

More than half of countries in the world (54%), registered a drop in one of the five key democracy indicators between 2019 and 2024, the report said.

“The most important finding in our report is the very acute deterioration in press freedom around the world,” Casas-Zamora said.

Between 2019 and 2024, it saw “the biggest drop over the past 50 years”.

“We’ve never seen such an acute deterioration in a key indicator of democratic health,” he said.

Press freedoms declined in 43 countries across all continents, including 15 in Africa and 15 in Europe.

“There’s a toxic brew that is coming together, which involves, on the one hand, heavy-handed interventions on the part of governments,” some of them “legacies of what happened during the pandemic”.

On the other hand, “you have the very negative impact of disinformation, some of which is real disinformation and some of which is used as a pretext by governments to clamp down on press freedoms”.

The think tank is concerned about the consolidation of traditional media worldwide, as well as the “disappearance in many countries of local media which plays a very important role in supporting a democratic debate”, Casas-Zamora said.

The report only covers the period 2019 to 2024 and does not include the first effects of US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January.

But “some of the things that we saw during the election at the end of last year and in the first few months of 2025 are fairly disturbing”, Casas-Zamora said.

“Since what happens in the US has this ability to go global, this does not bode well for democracy globally,” he added.