NATO races to defend eastern flank as Putin begins nuclear missile and military drills – with British ‘assets’ sent to protect borders from Russian invasion

NATO launched on Friday a new mission to bolster the defence of Europe’s eastern flank in response to Russian drone incursions into Polish airspace earlier this week, Secretary-General Mark Rutte said.

‘It’s reckless and unacceptable. We can’t have Russian drones entering allied airspace,’ Rutte added, announcing operation ‘Eastern Sentry’.

The mission, which begins Friday evening, will involve a range of assets integrating air and ground bases.

Allies, including Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Germany have so far committed to the mission with others set to join, Rutte said.

NATO’s top commander Alexus Grynkewich said NATO would defend every inch of the alliance’s territory.

‘Poland and citizens from across the Alliance should be assured by our rapid response earlier this week and our significant announcement here today,’ he said.

The announcement came as Russia and Belarus launched a major joint military exercise on Friday.

The Zapad (‘West’) 2025 drills will be held in Russia and Belarus, on the border with NATO‘s eastern flank, from Friday until next Tuesday, September 16.

Moscow‘s Defence Ministry said the exercise will be held on the Russian territory, as well as the Baltic and the Barents Seas.

Troops will practice ‘planning the use of’ nuclear weapons and the new nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missiles that Moscow has promised to station in Belarus.

U.S. President Donald Trump said his patience with Vladimir Putin was ‘running out fast’ and hinted at tough sanctions over the war in Ukraine. 

The drills follow Wednesday’s incursion of Russian drones into Polish airspace, fueling longstanding fears that the hostilities in Ukraine could trigger a wider conflict. 

The Russian military said it wasn’t targeting Poland, and Belarus suggested drones veered off course, but European leaders described it as a deliberate provocation, forcing NATO allies to confront a potential threat in its airspace for the first time.

Analysts warned Russia could be testing NATO’s readiness for a potential conflict ahead of the long-planned drills.

Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have in turn ramped up security, with Poland this week ordering the complete closure of its border with Belarus for the duration of the drills.

European allies fear they could be used to rehearse an invasion of Europe, after 2021’s drills saw a huge build up of forces used to attack Ukraine months later.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned of ‘critical days’ ahead as he sent 40,000 troops to his country’s border and pulled barbed wire and barricades across roads.

He said Poland was closer to ‘open conflict’ than at any point since World War II, after Poland and allies scrambled jets to down drones in Polish airspace early Wednesday.

According to Tusk, the exercises are designed to simulate the occupation of the Suwalki corridor, considered a vulnerability for NATO.

Russia has, in the past, used the drills to simulate a nuclear attack on Warsaw, and this year stands to rehearse using its new nuclear-capable missile on NATO’s border.

The Zapad-2021 drills, a prelude to the invasion of Ukraine, was expected to host 12,800 servicemen; it ended up closer to 200,000, according to Russian authorities. 

The Kremlin has played down concerns this year. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the drills are ‘planned exercises’ and ‘not aimed against anyone’.

Analysts expect Russia will be using the drills, and the drone incursion, to test NATO’s readiness and resolve. NATO says it will also be watching Russia closely.

Germany’s chief of defence Carsten Breuer said that NATO would ‘be on our guard’ ahead of the drills as NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Russia was rapidly rearming. 

Major General Agostinho Costa, a military expert for CNN Portugal, said: ‘This exercise is a message, of what they’ve been saying, that if necessary, they will escalate the conflict to a nuclear level.’

He added: ‘Europe’s biggest problem is that it doesn’t take the Kremlin seriously, and that’s what’s dangerous, because it’s crossing one red line after another, but the day it’s effectively the last line, there will be no time left.’

The drills have been anticipated for months and will have been years in the making. Cezary Tomczyk, Poland’s deputy minister of national defence, said in April that Poland had been preparing for the drills for many months. 

But this year’s excercises will be coloured by the war in Ukraine, and Poland’s accusation that Russia deliberately fired attack drones into its airspace overnight Tuesday into Wednesday.

Trump voiced his frustrations about Putin’s refusal to end the war in Ukraine on Friday, while suggesting Kyiv also needed to compromise.

‘It’s sort of running out and running out fast, but it does take two to tango,’ Trump told the Fox and Friends show when asked if his patience was being taxed by Russia’s continued aggression.

‘It’s amazing. When Putin wants to do it, (President Volodymyr) Zelensky didn’t. When Zelensky wanted to do it, Putin didn’t. Now Zelensky wants to and Putin is a question mark. We’re going to have to come down very, very strong.’

‘The objectives of the drills are to improve the skills of commanders and staffs, the level of co-operation and field training of regional and coalition groupings of troops,’ the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram.

In a first stage, troops will simulate repelling an attack against Russia and Belarus, whose alliance is known as the Union State.

The second stage will focus on ‘restoring the territorial integrity of the Union State and crushing the enemy, including with the participation of a coalition group of forces from friendly states,’ the ministry said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that the drills, including near the Polish border, were not aimed against any other country.

But this week’s drone incident over Poland was seen in the West as an alarm call for NATO and a test of its responses. Western countries called it a deliberate provocation by Russia, which Moscow denied.

A senior Russian diplomat in Poland said the drones had come from the direction of Ukraine. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its drones had carried out an attack in western Ukraine, but it had not planned to hit any targets in Poland. 

Trump said Russia’s drone incursion into Poland could have been a mistake.

‘I’m not happy about anything to do with the whole situation, but hopefully that’s going to come to an end,’ Trump told reporters before boarding Marine One on Thursday.

But Poland, and some other allies in Europe, have insisted it was not accidental. 

Poland’s Tusk on Friday dismissed Trump’s suggestion that the intrusion of some 20 Russian drones into Polish airspace could be a mistake.

‘We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it,’ Tusk said on X.

Zelensky warned that the airspace violation was a ‘dangerous precedent’ for Europe, saying it was ‘no accident’.

Outgoing French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said today he would summon the Russian ambassador over the incursion, which he said was a deliberate strategy to intimidate and test NATO allies.

Speaking on France Inter radio, Barrot said: ‘Accident or not, it was unacceptable’.

France will send three Rafale fighter jets to help Poland protect its airspace, President Emmanuel Macron announced late on Thursday. 

This week’s drone incident over Poland was seen in the West as an alarm call for NATO and a test of its responses. Western countries called it a deliberate provocation by Russia, which Moscow denied.

From NATO’s perspective, the ‘test’ went well. Without U.S. support, European countries quickly scrambled jets to support Poland.

Even before the incident, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had described the upcoming ‘Zapad’ manoeuvres as ‘very aggressive’ and announced that Poland would close its border with Belarus at midnight on Thursday.

Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said: ‘This decision to close the border … is a response to very specific aggressive military exercises against Poland that are starting in Belarus.

‘We are doing this for the safety of our citizens. Russia has been behaving aggressively towards Poland in recent days and for many years … towards the entire civilised world.’

Belarus also shares borders with NATO members Lithuania and Latvia. Lithuania said it was protecting its border because of the military exercise.

Lithuania and Latvia have also announced partial airspace closures. 

Usually held every four years, the 2025 iteration of Zapad is the first during the conflict in Ukraine, and is to run until September 16.

Moscow sent around 200,000 troops to similar drills in 2021, just months before it launched its Ukraine offensive.

But this year’s Zapad is expected to be much smaller, since hundreds of thousands of Russian troops are deployed in Ukraine.

Belarus had said in January that 13,000 troops would be involved in the drills, but in May it said the number was to be reduced by around half.

It also said it would be inviting observers, including from NATO countries, this year.

Russia’s stationing of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus has nonetheless given the drills a new dimension.

Minsk said in August the exercises would involve Russia’s new experimental nuclear-capable missile, dubbed Oreshnik, as well as nuclear strike training.

Moscow-based military analyst Alexander Khramchikhin told AFP the importance of the drills was being overblown, calling them ‘just a show’ with little ‘special significance’.

He said that similar exercises were held at this time every year, rotating between different parts of Russia and previously including nuclear simulations.

But Vassily Kashin, a military analyst and member of the Kremlin-linked Russian International Affairs Council, said the exercises were ‘both a demonstration and real combat training’.

‘We must be ready to defend Belarus, if necessary,’ he told AFP, noting that Poland and its allies planned to hold their own counter-drills through September.

Kashin added that the practice of rival drills by Russia and NATO’s eastern members at the same time was probably here to stay, ‘just as it was during the Cold War’.