If you believed the Cold War was dead, the last fortnight has been an eye-opener to recall that the security architecture of Europe is as distant from its being set in cement as ever. In a shockwave that reverberated from defense ministries to cafes worldwide, nineteen Russian drones flew into Polish skies during the early morning hours of September 10, a move that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk described as an “unprecedented” act of aggression.
This wasn’t one rogue marauding drone; wreckage lay scattered deep within Poland, with one of the drones crashing into an apartment building in Wyryki-Wola. Rzeszów and Lublin airports, the latter a vital transshipment point for Western aid into Ukraine, were closed down, with fighter aircraft taking to the skies above. For the first time in the history of NATO, allied planes destroyed Russian drones within their own airspace—a Rubicon moment if ever there was one.
Poland acted quickly under Article 4 of the NATO agreement, requesting emergency consultations when it believes another member is being attacked. The North Atlantic Council met, and the message of Secretary General Mark Rutte was clear as day: “Allies expressed solidarity with Poland and condemned Russia’s reckless behavior.” To Mark Rutte, “We will defend every inch of Allied territory, all 32 Allies, and whatever the intention was behind this, yes or no, and whether that was an error or not, we are still investigating that. It was reckless, it was unacceptable. These are Russian drones, and it is very serious what happened last Wednesday.” The alliance’s response was not rhetorical. Dutch F-35s, Polish F-16s, German Patriot missile defense systems, and an Italian surveillance plane all rolled out.
France committed to sending Rafale fighters, while Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic offered troops, artillery, and air defense to Poland’s eastern border. The new “Eastern Sentry” effort went live, meshing air and ground defenses and promising a more fluid, responsive response along the entire eastern edge of the alliance.
But the play-act was from being over at the Polish frontier. Seven days later, three Russian MiG-31 fighter-interceptors crossed into Estonian airspace over the Baltic, again triggering a round of NATO scrambles—this time by Italian F-35s chasing the visitors away. Estonia’s Prime Minister Kristen Michal called the penetration “totally unacceptable” and even asked for Article 4 consultations, the second such request in the space of less than a week. Estonian defense authorities observed that the Russian fighters had no flight plans, transponders switched off, and disregarded air traffic control—traditional indicators of a coordinated provocation.
As Estonia’s foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, put it so neatly, “Russia has already invaded Estonian airspace four times so far this year, which in itself is unacceptable. But today’s intrusion … is unprecedentedly arrogant.” European leaders from Ursula von der Leyen to Emmanuel Macron queued up to decry the “blatant violation of international law,” while NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Command Operations modestly noted that “this is not the kind of behaviour one would expect of a professional air force.”
If you’re getting déjà vu, you’re not alone. Russian drones and missiles have crossed into NATO airspace before—Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and now Poland and Estonia have all reported similar incidents. But the scale and brazenness of these latest incursions are something new. Analysts see a deliberate pattern: Moscow is probing NATO’s defenses, testing the alliance’s unity, and sending a not-so-subtle message that supporting Ukraine comes with risks. As Aaron Korewa of the Atlantic Council says, “When almost two dozen drones are dispatched into the airspace of a NATO ally, that’s not an accident. Members of Poland’s government were insistent that they viewed this as a Russian provocation.” The psychological effect is not just real—war is no longer “next door” in Ukraine; now it’s on the driveway of NATO.
The strategic environment is more complex. As it ramps up its drone and missile attacks against Ukraine—415 drones and 42 cruise missiles in a single night, by Ukrainian estimates—it is also massing huge joint maneuvers with Belarus on NATO’s doorstep. The Zapad 2025 maneuvers, smaller than before, are being seen by Polish and Baltic leaders as rehearsing for even bolder action. At the same time, to the north, the security situation is changing at a breakneck pace. With Sweden and Finland members of NATO, the alliance’s northern border is more exposed—and more valuable—than ever before.
Russia’s military deployments along the Northern Sea Route, surprise exercises, electronic warfare, and incursions into airspace, a Center for European Policy Analysis report contends, are all part of a grand design to project power and probe Western resolve.
All this is happening against the background of political upheaval in Washington. European powers have been observing with increasing alarm since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, as US backing for Ukraine is disintegrating and the NATO security guarantees are put into doubt. Trump’s reaction to the Polish drone invasion—a solitary social media post, “What’s with Russia invading Poland with drones? Here we go!”—was universally interpreted as half-hearted.
It is Russia’s bet, wrote the Milwaukee Independent, “on plausible deniability, and on the hope that Western leadership, particularly under Trump’s appeasement-disguised-as-cowardice ideology, will be hesitant to act in favor of ambiguity.” The Kremlin arithmetic is easy: act just short of clear war, cast doubt, and wait for cracks to open within the alliance. NATO has answered to this thus far with grit and solidarity, reinforcing its eastern border and instituting new defense efforts. But the stakes are higher than they have been in decades. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has cautioned, these are not accidents—these are part of a systematic effort and require a systemic response. The question that looms over the heads of Brussels, Warsaw, Tallinn, and all the other capitals is whether the Coalition of World War II can coexist in a new world of hybrid warfare, drone swarms, and strategic ambiguity. The red lines are being redrawn in real time, and the world waits to see who blinks first.