Poland detains 2 Belarusian citizens flying drone over president’s residence in Warsaw

BERLIN (AP)-The Polish authorities neutralized a flying drone over government buildings in Warsaw on Monday evening, a spokesman for state protection services at the Associated Press said.

Two employees of the state protection services working at the Belvédère castle, where the president resides, spotted the drone over the building and took measures leading to the detention of operators, two Belarusian citizens said, said Colonel Boguslaw Piorkowski.

Poland is on alert after several Russian drones took place in the country last week in what European officials described as a deliberate provocation and made NATO sends fighter planes to shoot them down.

Piorkowski said the Warsaw Survain Drone on Monday evening was not shot, but landed after the authorities have apprehended the operators.

“The impression is that it is not something that has stolen” from abroad but rather launched locally, “said Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz, the Minister of Poland for Development and Regional Policy at TVN 24, advising to rush to conclusions or associate it with last week’s foray.