Ireland may be neutral, but Russia showed during Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Dublin that it is willing to infringe on other countries’ borders and neutrality status with acts of ‘hybrid warfare’
President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife Olena Zelenska with President Catherine Connolly. Photo: Tony Maxwell
Last week, the war in Ukraine briefly came close to Irish airspace. Not with missiles or fighter jets, but with a cluster of military-style drones that slipped into a no-fly zone over the Irish Sea and headed straight for the flight path of president Volodymyr Zelensky’s plane as it approached Dublin.
His aircraft landed slightly ahead of schedule; the drones arrived on time for an interception that never happened, then drifted off to circle the Irish naval ship LÉ William Butler Yeats below.