Poland's foreign minister has warned of the threat of a Third World War, telling parliament that NATO must be ready for a war 'of the scale that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers saw'

A NATO member has warned the threat of a Third World War is growing.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told the Sejm, his country's parliament, that it is now necessary to be prepared for a war "of the scale that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers saw".

Sikorski said that Poland - which shares a border with Russia as well as Ukraine - will be on the frontline of any new Russian aggression. Sikorsky, who is a former British citizen, stressed that awareness of the danger can either paralyse or mobilise.

Poland cannot afford to be "paralysed" or reassured that this is "not its war", he told MPs. "Putin doesn't want peace, only surrender," he said. "If Ukraine were to be defeated, the threat from Russia would not only not decrease, but on the contrary, increase."

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Russian aggression against NATO's eastern flank countries would prove costly for these states. Drone incursions, railway track sabotage and disinformation campaigns have already been carried out by Russia, the foreign minister said.

He reminded MPs of Amelia Gzhesko, the seven-year-old Polish girl who was killed after a Russian Kh-101 missile hit a residential high-rise in Ternopil, Ukraine, in November.

It comes as NATO air defences were put on alert overnight on Friday in allied state Romania after a Russian drone came close to its airspace during a barrage of strikes on Ukrainian ports on the River Danube, in Odesa region.

NATO fighter jets have been scrambled twice this week due to the threat of Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukraine - in Poland on Sunday followed by Romania on Thursday.

Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine was under sustained Russian artillery and drone attack overnight, and four people, including a teenager, were injured in a Russian drone attack on Zaporizhzhia.

Ukraine’s Armed Forces attacked an oil depot in Russian-held Luhansk region, as well as an energy facility in Russian city Belgorod, plunging thousands into darkness.