{"id":27295,"date":"2026-10-19T12:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T11:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=27295"},"modified":"2026-10-19T12:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T11:50:11","slug":"raf-drone-near-misses-uk-drill-poland-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2026\/10\/19\/raf-drone-near-misses-uk-drill-poland-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"RAF jets met unidentified drones at 17,000 ft over the North Sea, the Telegraph reports"},"content":{"rendered":"<section aria-labelledby=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-inrtzyj-hlesdml-zofjqh\" class=\"auk-zvimcvi-inrtzyj\" lang=\"en\">\n<h2 id=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-inrtzyj-hlesdml-zofjqh\">In brief<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Unidentified drones came close to RAF jets twice during North Sea training earlier this year, the Telegraph reports.<\/li>\n<li>Hundreds of British troops head to Poland next month for a drill simulating a Ukraine deployment after a ceasefire.<\/li>\n<li>The EU is reportedly preparing a plan letting Britons under 30 take paid jobs in Europe.<\/li>\n<li>An Ipsos poll shows the Conservatives back as the main opposition, the Daily Mail says.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<p>Two encounters between RAF jets and unidentified drones over the North Sea, reported by the Daily Telegraph, headed British front pages on Friday, 16 October, alongside news of a military rehearsal in Poland.<\/p>\n<p>The newspaper review compiled by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ckq5n381j7w1o\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">BBC News<\/a> brings together stories that touch Central Europe directly, from Polish training grounds to Brussels negotiating rooms, as well as shifts in Washington\u2019s approach to the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<h2>Drones at fighter-jet altitude<\/h2>\n<p>According to the Telegraph, the jets were on training exercises earlier this year when the two \u201cnear-misses\u201d occurred, separated by only a few days. The altitude is what makes the episode striking.<\/p>\n<div class=\"auk-kmrcibp\">\n<div class=\"auk-fsnsbv\"><strong class=\"auk-fsnsbv__fvtkh\">17,000<span class=\"auk-fsnsbv__wmbpnjn\">ft<\/span><\/strong><span class=\"auk-fsnsbv__ppkniutc\">Height at which the objects were spotted<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"auk-fsnsbv\"><strong class=\"auk-fsnsbv__fvtkh\">40\u00a0<span class=\"auk-fsnsbv__wmbpnjn\">times<\/span><\/strong><span class=\"auk-fsnsbv__ppkniutc\">More than the legal ceiling for commercial drones, the paper notes<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Incident logs the Telegraph has seen indicate that the RAF passed the sightings to police. The same documents point to \u201cmultiple different external investigations\u201d still under way. Nothing published so far identifies who flew the drones or why.<\/p>\n<h2>A first rehearsal for a ceasefire mission<\/h2>\n<p>The Times reports that hundreds of British soldiers will travel to Poland next month to practise what a deployment to Ukraine would look like if a ceasefire were agreed. The paper describes the drill as \u201cthe first of its kind\u201d and says French and German personnel will take part too. Poland, Ukraine\u2019s neighbour and a frontline NATO state, thus becomes the testing ground for a scenario that remains hypothetical: the reporting concerns an exercise, not a decision to send forces.<\/p>\n<p>The domestic tone hardened on the same day. The Daily Express reports that the head of the Army, Gen Sir Roly Walker, warned that political leaders will ask \u201cordinary Britons\u201d to get ready for war.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"auk-pocmgnt\">\n<p>\u201cYou will need to fight for us\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Daily Express headline, quoting Gen Sir Roly Walker<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>A shifting backdrop in Washington and Brussels<\/h2>\n<p>Other titles described movement on several fronts, each still at the stage of press reporting rather than confirmed decisions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Independent calls this a \u201cpivotal week\u201d for the war, with the White House seeking lower diesel prices by loosening sanctions on Russia\u2019s shadow fleet.<\/li>\n<li>The same paper writes that this change arrives as Ukraine\u2019s stock of American Patriot weapons runs low.<\/li>\n<li>The iWeekend says the European Union is drafting a plan so that Britons under 30 can work for pay in Europe.<\/li>\n<li>According to the iWeekend, Brussels \u201ccould back down\u201d on tuition fees and youth work visas, which the paper attributes to a wish to finalise an updated Brexit deal fast.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Politics and business at home<\/h2>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Newspaper<\/th>\n<th>Subject<\/th>\n<th>Reported development<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Daily Mail<\/td>\n<td>Ipsos poll<\/td>\n<td>Kemi Badenoch\u2019s Conservatives have overturned the 28-point lead Reform UK held in May, making them the main opposition again<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Financial Times<\/td>\n<td>Apple and the Competition and Markets Authority<\/td>\n<td>Apple is preparing to resist the regulator\u2019s demand that it open its digital wallet technology to rival payment providers<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Commenting on the poll, a pollster told the Daily Mail that \u201ctectonic plates are shifting on the Right of British politics\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"media-credit auk-gogcn-ertkm\" data-provider=\"pexels\"><small>Photo: Olcay Ayvaz \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/jet-fighter-flying-high-over-pamukkale-35071781\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British troops will rehearse a Ukraine ceasefire deployment alongside French and German forces, while police examine drones spotted at RAF jets\u2019 altitude.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":27297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1122,1216,596,1214,1215,1202,1119],"class_list":["post-27295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-brexit","tag-defence","tag-drones","tag-poland","tag-raf","tag-ukraine","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27296,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27295\/revisions\/27296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}