MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. The French Rafale fighter jets that have been deployed to Poland for participating in NATO’s Eastern Sentry operation are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, the Defence-24 portal reported.

According to the portal, France sent a squadron of Rafale fighter jets from the 113th airbase at Saint Dizier, a home base for warplanes carrying nuclear weapons. Having analyzed photos from Poland’s Minsk Mazowiecki base where the jets were deployed to, the portal assumed that the planes are not equipped with warheads.

France sent three Rafale fighter jets to Poland to take part in NATO’s Operation Eastern Sentry to protect airspace of the alliance’s eastern flank countries. The operation was announced on September 12 after consultations on invoking Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty that were initiated by Warsaw after the drone incursion incident overnight to September 10.

On the morning of September 10, Poland’s operational military command announced the destruction of several objects identified as UAVs that had violated national airspace. According to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, nineteen violations of the country’s airspace were reported.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that during the night of September 9-10, Russian forces targeted Ukrainian military-industrial facilities in the Ivano-Frankovsk, Khmelnitsky, and Zhitomir regions, as well as in Vinnitsa and Lvov. The ministry emphasized that no targets within Polish territory were planned for destruction. It also noted that the UAVs allegedly crossing into Polish airspace had a maximum range of 700 kilometers. The Russian Defense Ministry expressed its readiness to engage in consultations with Poland regarding the incident.