Poland on Wednesday said it shot down unmanned Russian aircraft that had violated its airspace overnight, part of a “huge” incursion into its territory by at least 19 drones, though Polish leaders offered reassurance that their country is not on the brink of war.
Rather than a mistake, early evidence suggests that the incursions could be a deliberate tactical move by the Kremlin to test NATO’s resolve, some analysts argue. The drones entered Polish airspace during a Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine.
The incident raises pressing questions about the NATO alliance’s Article 5 guarantees, in which member states pledge to come to the aid of a fellow member under attack, military experts say.
Why We Wrote This
By flying drones over Poland, Russia might be trying to prevent NATO members from sending soldiers to Ukraine. Instead, some Western military experts say the move could unify NATO.
It could also prompt the Pentagon to rethink the Trump administration’s recent plans to remove U.S. troops from parts of Europe, analysts add, if neighboring countries perceive a heightened security threat.
Warsaw has invoked NATO’s Article 4, which is a step below Article 5 and calls for a mandatory meeting of alliance members. It is the second time this has happened since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
This shows “restraint, and that this escalation won’t be ignored,” said Peter Doran, former president of the Center for European Policy Analysis and now an adjunct senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), in an emailed statement.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte described Russia’s actions as “absolutely reckless” and said that NATO members will “defend every inch of Allied territory,” a sentiment echoed by Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. representative to NATO and a close adviser to President Donald Trump.
The overnight incursion marked the first time Russian drones have been downed over the territory of a NATO member. They were shot down by NATO and Polish jets, Polish officials said.
The fact that there were 19 Russian drones involved “seems like a rather high number for this to have been an accident caused by malfunctions or Ukrainian electronic warfare,” said John Hardie, the deputy director of FDD’s Russia program, in an emailed response.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that while the incursion was “a large-scale provocation” by Moscow, his country is not on the brink of war. That said, he added, the large airspace violation brings Poland “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II.”
NATO members, including the United Kingdom, are now looking into possibilities for beefing up Poland’s air defenses. “We see what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is doing. Yet again, he is testing us,” John Healey, the British defense secretary, said on Wednesday.
Mr. Putin might be aiming to trigger fears of escalation among some NATO allies, and, in so doing, keep member states from providing security guarantees including European boots on the ground in Ukraine – a potential development that the Kremlin has said would be a red line for Russia.
“It is still unknown if this was an intentional act or a malfunction by drones,” Mr. Doran said. “The Poles are recovering the debris and will likely find out.”
In the meantime, he added: “The Pentagon should seriously rethink its plans to remove U.S. troops from parts of Europe.”
