Poland has called an emergency Nato council meeting after shooting down at least four Russian drones that entered its airspace in the most dangerous test of the alliance’s resolve in decades.
In calling for the meeting, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, who said he was in “constant contact” with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, brought the alliance together to discuss Article 5 – the obligation to defend a member subject to an armed attack.
Tusk invoked Nato’s article 4, triggering discussions at which a decision will be taken on how Nato will respond as an international body, after it emerged that the Russian drones had been shot down very deep into Polish territory, far from Ukraine.
He said that Poland was closer to war than at any time since World War II and his government described the drones as “an act of aggression that posed a real threat to the safety of our civilians”.
The move will further test Donald Trump’s loyalty to the West’s most important strategic alliance. He has spent the last seven months while in office backing Russia against America’s allies and has himself threatened to invade or annex Nato members Canada and Denmark.
His reluctance to back Nato members in Europe and Canada in support of Ukraine will be tested by the article 4 talks. There is little chance of a decision involving military action. But demands for increased support for Ukraine, especially from America because it is Europe’s front line with the Kremlin, are inevitable.
Defence secretary John Healey said: “We say to President Putin, your aggression only serves to strengthen the unity between our Nato nations. Your aggression only serves to strengthen our determination to stand with Ukraine. And your aggression reminds us that a secure Europe needs a strong Ukraine. And that the security of Europe starts in Ukraine”.
Many of the Russian drones were shot down by Polish aircraft that were scrambled in a taste of what, many in Europe fear, what is to come from Russia.
Vladimir Putin has often said that he wants to return eastern Europe to the era when it was ruled, or dominated, by the Soviet Union. He has threatened the Baltic states, and Poland, especially.
As a result, Poland is expanding its military at breakneck speed with heavy spending on armour, aircraft, and infantry fighting vehicles.
The incursion into Polish airspace may be an accident, with the deep penetration of the drones possibly explained by a failure of their guidance systems.
But it is an accident that Russia clearly feels happy to risk, given the level of impunity for its actions.
Putin was given red-carpet treatment on American soil in Alaska even though the International Criminal Court has issued him an international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha, said on X (Twitter) that “the longer he [Putin] faces no strength in response, the more aggressive he gets”.
Joe Wilson, a Republican US congressman, said that the penetration of Poland’s airspace, which he called an attack, was an “act of war”.
Trump has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons directly and threatened to cut the flow of intelligence to Kyiv since he took office. He has imposed very little pressure on the Kremlin, though.
Lately, as Putin has resisted his efforts to get a ceasefire process underway in Ukraine, Trump has repeatedly threatened economic sanctions on Russian trading partners. But he has never suggested that America would return to the level of military assistance given by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
“Putin is no longer content just losing in Ukraine while bombing mothers and babies, he is now directly testing our resolve in Nato territory,” Wilson said on X.
Trump will be called upon to join Nato in condemning Russia’s air penetration of Poland and even issuing warnings to back off or face violent consequences.
This will sit uneasily with this US president and his long history of friendships in Moscow, which trump the US alliance that has been the bedrock of the West’s security architecture for decades.
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