UK fighter jets begin NATO air mission over Poland

British fighter jets have flown their first NATO air defence sortie over Poland as part of NATO's Eastern Sentry mission, aimed at strengthening the Western alliance's defences following a Russian drone incursion this month.

The mission, announced by the UK government in the immediate aftermath of the incursions into Polish airspace, sends "a clear signal: NATO airspace will be defended", Defence Minister John Healey said in a statement.

Two Royal Air Force Typhoons took off from a British military base in eastern England on Friday night to patrol Polish skies and deter and defend against aerial threats from Russia, including drones, the statement said, adding that they returned safely to the UK early on Saturday.

The British government said it was a response to the "most significant violation" of NATO airspace by Russian President Putin to date since his illegal full-scale war in Ukraine.

Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth, said the British jets joined allies along NATO's eastern flank.

"We remain agile, integrated, and ready to project airpower at range," he said.

The UK government has promised to boost defence spending to 2.6 per cent of GDP by April 2027, in a signal to US President Donald Trump that Britain can help boost Europe's security. Trump has criticised European nations for not spending enough on defence and relying instead on the United States.

The UK mission over Poland also comes amid heightened tensions elsewhere in Europe, with NATO-member Estonia saying on Friday that three Russian military jets violated its airspace for 12 minutes in an "unprecedentedly brazen" incursion.

Healey condemned that on Friday, saying Russia's "latest reckless and dangerous activity is the third violation of NATO airspace in recent days".

Russia's Defence Ministry denied its jets violated Estonian airspace, saying they flew over neutral waters.

Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack targeting regions across Ukraine overnight, killing at least three people and wounding dozens more, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said attacks took place across nine regions including Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy and Kharkiv.

"The enemy's target was our infrastructure, residential areas and civilian enterprises," he said, adding that a missile equipped with cluster munitions struck a multi-storey building in the city of Dnipro.

"Each such strike is not a military necessity but a deliberate strategy by Russia to intimidate civilians and destroy our infrastructure," he said in a social media post.

Zelenskiy said he expected to meet Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week.

Russia's Defence Ministry denied its aircraft violated Estonia's airspace after Estonian authorities reported three fighter jets crossed into its territory on Friday without permission and remained there for 12 minutes.

In a statement early on Saturday, Russia stressed its fighter jets had kept to neutral Baltic Sea waters more than three kilometres from Estonia's Vaindloo Island in the Gulf of Finland.

"On September 19, three MiG-31 fighter jets completed a scheduled flight from Karelia to an airfield in the Kaliningrad region," it said, referencing the Russian enclave sandwiched between Polish and Lithuanian territory.

"The flight was conducted in strict compliance with international airspace regulations and did not violate the borders of other states, as confirmed through objective monitoring," the statement said without providing details about the monitoring operation.

Estonian officials dismissed the denial, saying the violation was confirmed by radar and visual contact and suggested it could be a tactic to draw NATO resources away from Ukraine.

The Russian MIG-31 fighters entered Estonian airspace between 9.58am and 10.10am local time on Friday in the area of Vaindloo, a small island located in the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, the Estonian military said.

It still "needs to be confirmed," if the border violation was deliberate or not, Colonel Ants Kiviselg, the commander of Estonia's Military Intelligence Centre told the Associated Press.

Regardless, he said, the Russian jets "must have known that they are in (Estonian) airspace".

The Russian pilots didn't pose a "military threat," Kiviselg said.

with DPA