NATO to beef up defence of Europe’s eastern flank after Poland shot down drones
NATO announced plans to beef up the defence of Europe’s eastern flank on Friday, two days after Poland shot down drones that had violated its airspace in the first known action of its kind by a member of the Western alliance during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
At the United Nations, the United States called the airspace violations “alarming” and vowed to “defend every inch of NATO territory,” remarks that appeared aimed at assuaging Washington’s NATO allies after President Donald Trump said Russia’s drone incursion could have been a mistake.
Warsaw has portrayed the drone incursions as an attempt by Russia to test the capabilities of Poland and NATO to respond.
On Friday, Poland rejected Trump’s suggestion that the incursions could have been a mistake, a rare contradiction of the U.S. president from one of Washington’s closest European allies. Its foreign minister told Reuters Poland hoped Washington will take action to show solidarity with Warsaw.
Later on Friday, the U.S. joined Western allies in a statement to express concern about the drone incursion and to accuse Moscow of violating international law and the founding U.N. Charter. [Continue reading…]
An American factory in western Ukraine. Two European diplomatic compounds and a key Ukrainian government building in Kyiv. And now Poland.
Over a roughly three-week period, Russian drones and missiles have struck sites of increasing sensitivity for Ukraine and its Western allies, culminating in the volley of Russian drones that buzzed early Wednesday over Poland, a NATO country.
For decades, American and European military planners feared something else: a bolt-from-the-blue assault, like an all-out nuclear strike, from the Soviet Union or Russia. But in its war on Ukraine, Russia has walked over a Western red line gradually, gauging responses as it goes, blunting any pushback by escalating slowly and maintaining some level of deniability, according to Ukrainian officials and analysts.
The drones that flew into Poland prompted NATO to send warplanes to shoot them down, in the first direct engagement of the alliance’s troops with Russian weaponry since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. But none of the previous Russian attacks in recent weeks led to more than strongly worded statements from European or U.S. officials, and it was unclear if Russia would pay any real price for its incursion into Poland.
“Russian drones flying into Poland during the massive attack on Ukraine show that Putin’s sense of impunity keeps growing,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said in a statement about the incident, speaking of President Vladimir V. Putin. “He was not properly punished for his previous crimes.” [Continue reading…]