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Europe-Russia relations are on a dangerous escalation trajectory, as Vladimir Putin, geopolitically strengthened after the summits of recent weeks in Alaska and Beijing, tests the cohesion of the Western Alliance.

The Kremlin has been issuing provocations in recent days: On September 5, Putin stated directly that Russia rejects the possibility of Western forces being present in Ukraine after the end of hostilities, even threateningly saying that they would be legitimate targets for the Russian military. Less than three weeks earlier, Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump's envoy to Russia, among others, assured that Moscow had accepted the provision of security guarantees by the West for Kiev.

The aftermath showed how valuable these assurances were: Moscow launched the most intense attack of the war, with 805 drones and 13 missiles hitting targets in one night.

The moment of alarm within the North Atlantic Alliance came on Tuesday night to Wednesday, when 19 Russian drones (the Iranian-made Shahed) entered Polish airspace, leading to the suspension of airport operations and the mobilization of fighter jets – Polish and Dutch – and other advanced systems (AWACS, Patriots) to counter the threat. NATO forces shot down only the four unmanned aircraft, in the first direct military engagement between NATO and Russia since February 24, 2022.

Inadequate response – The result was to confirm major weaknesses in NATO’s defense. It was not a complete failure, but it was a rather inadequate response, Michel Duclos, a special advisor to the Institut Montaigne, tells K.

The low rate of shootdowns led Strategic Studies professor Phillips O’Brien to comment on his Substack: The fact that NATO had to rely on extremely expensive systems to do what the Ukrainians are doing at a fraction of the cost and couldn’t or wouldn’t shoot down all the Russian attacking drones reveals how unprepared NATO really is. God help them if they find themselves facing 600 drones and missiles in a single night.

Turning point

It is certainly part of Putin's plans to test Poland's reflexes, at a time when the domestic political scene in Warsaw is complex and the war in Ukraine may be at a turning point, Michel Duclos, ambassador at large and special advisor and resident senior fellow at the Institut Montaigne in Paris, points out to K.

The result was to confirm major weaknesses in NATO’s defenses. It was not a complete failure, but it was a rather inadequate response. It should make Polish and European leaders better prepared for possible future incidents – for example in the Baltic states – or, at least, more prudent in avoiding risks.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his country was closer to war than at any time since 1945. Both Tusk and NATO officials, although they made it clear that it was a deliberate violation, avoided talking about an attack so as not to trigger Article 5 of the Alliance's charter on collective response.

Poland instead invoked Article 4 (on the perceived threat to the territorial integrity, political independence or security of a member state) and called for a meeting of the Alliance’s ambassadors. After the consultations, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reaffirmed the allies’ determination to defend every inch of member state territory – something that the US ambassador to NATO also expressed through H.

The leader of the most important of the allies, however, did not react in a way that would reassure the countries on the eastern edge of NATO. On Wednesday evening, Greek time, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, as if he were a simple observer of the developments: How did Russia violate Polish airspace with drones?. He added the enigmatic phrase Here we go!, without it being clear what he meant. (Later that evening he spoke by phone with his Polish counterpart Karol Nawrotski.) The next day, however, he said that the violation may have been a mistake, provoking a reaction from the Polish government, which insists that it was a deliberate violation.

They are pushing for sanctions – Republican senators, as well as Lindsey Graham, a secret Trump adviser, are pushing for legislative interventions that would allow for crushing sanctions on countries that do business with Russia.

Last Sunday, Trump declared himself ready for a new round of US sanctions against Russia. Beyond his readiness, he didn't say much else. Since then, he seems (for the umpteenth time) to have lost interest in putting real pressure on Moscow.

They play us like a piano.

Following the Polish airspace violation, outgoing North Carolina Republican Senator Tom Tillis noted that the Russians are really playing us like a piano right now and that Putin has gotten everything he wanted. He had access to the president (Trump), he had a red carpet welcome, three weeks later he was welcomed on the red carpet by Xi Jinping and he hangs out with Kim Jong Un. He is not a man who wants peace, Tillis added.

He wants to play us and kill, rape and murder more Ukrainians, and that has to stop. The senator from North Carolina called on the Republican leadership of the body to bring to a vote the bipartisan Graham-Blumenthal sanctions package, which allows the US president to impose tariffs of up to 500% on countries that buy hydrocarbons or uranium from Russia and that do not contribute to the defense of Ukraine.

Lindsey Graham himself, a secret Trump adviser, addressed the US president directly via X, noting that we are ready to pass legislation for overwhelming new sanctions and tariffs that can be applied at your discretion. But the head of the Republican majority in the Senate, John Thune, who in July had frozen the sanctions package by giving the initiative to the White House, said that the incident with the Russian drones in Poland had intensified interest in its revival.

Putin, however, should not have been discouraged by the result of the Polish test. The test was a success from Moscow's perspective, estimates Michel Duclos. The Russians, as expected, denied that the drones were theirs, even promoting false information about a Ukrainian provocation.