Russian Drones Over Europe - What are People Thinking?

The NATO Reaction on the Incursions on Romanian and Polish Territory

NATO has launched a new operation dubbed ‘Operation Eastern Sentry’. It aims to put even more focus on protecting Europe’s eastern flank, which has been a major priority for the alliance since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.(1) The question of how reliable European defense truly is has become more relevant than ever over the last couple of weeks, especially airspace-defense, when unidentified as well as Russian drones have been sighted in several NATO-countries in Europe, and even fighter jets in Estonia. 

On the 8th of September a Russian drone violated Romanian airspace, and on the 13th of September Romanian fighter jets monitoring Russian attacks in Ukraine identified drones in Romanian airspace close to the Ukraine border. Russia has not commented on the violation. Only a week before, at least 19 drones flew into Polish airspace through Belarus; the numbers of drones are still unclear, but they flew deep into the country, around 250 km. 

Russia has violated the airspace of NATO-countries before, but NATO is describing this as a serious escalation. This could be due to the several violations within a short period of time, or to that there were many soldiers in the area during the Polish incident; Russian soldiers in Belarus performing a military exercise, and Polish soldiers on the other side of the border performing their own exercise. While no one was hurt during these incidents, the situation may have played out in a different way if the drones were shot down and hurt people, property or infrastructure.

The events sparked major discussion in Poland, and it has been reported that during a few minutes there was genuine concern in the country that Russia was staging a full-scale invasion. This led to a lot of activity, concerning strengthening the Eastern border through Eastern Sentry, but also making the population less susceptible to disinformation. There has also been efforts to inform people of how to act if the country finds itself at war.

Western consensus is that Russia wants to make a statement and test NATO, which responded strongly by activating Article 4 of the NATO-convention. Article 4 is perhaps less famous than Article 5, which essentially states that an attack on one NATO-state is an attack on all NATO-states and that all the states will help defend each other. Article 4 is used to summon the defense-alliance for a consultation.

NATO has been pressured to show resolve in this matter following the enactment of Article 4, and increased military investments in Eastern Europe through the Eastern Sentry Project is most likely partially a result of that. The need for a united resolve by NATO is evidenced by the Eastern Sentry project following the summoning of Article 4. Operation Eastern Sentry will not only focus on more traditional military capabilities such as fighter jets, but also on other measures directly focused on drones. On Friday the 26th of September, 4 countries had agreed to contribute to the operation: Great Britain, Germany and France. Since then, more countries have joined them. The resources added are not huge, seen as there has already been a great deal of focus on this region: international combat troops have been established in eight NATO countries in Eastern Europe, which have been systematically increased in size. Eastern Sentry should therefore be viewed as a complement to what is already being done, and also as a response to an increasingly assertive Russia. It was launched with very short notice and is not yet a complete plan. Only a couple of days passed from when the Russian drones violated Polish airspace to when the operation was announced, which indicates that in the long-term even more NATO-countries will contribute to the operation with more resources. 

Another sign of a forceful response to the violation is that there was an emergency meeting in the UN Security Council on Friday requested by Poland. Poland’s vice Foreign Minister stated that Russia says that Ukraine and the West are terrorists but that the opposite is true. According to a political commentator familiar with the matter, in general showing themselves to be prepared to meet the Russian aggression while defending themselves and their allies. As an example, Polish fighter jets preemptively took to the skies during the airspace violation in Romania. On the 12 September the Polish Foreign Minister visited Kiev, and when interviewed he expressed that NATO should be able to shoot down Russian drones over Ukraine. This is his personal opinion, and of course Poland cannot make a decision like that without the support of NATO itself, but it still speaks volumes. It is a sign that Poland is thinking in a new, more offensive manner and wants to push back against the Russian violations. Their change of mindset can be interpreted as a response to pressure, but Poland has long said that the West have to push back harder against Russian provocations. Hybrid warfare from Russia against Poland is not a new occurrence, and a lot of people feel a great deal of momentum to take action now that a further boundary has been breached. Zelensky has been asking for NATO-countries to be able to shoot down robots and drones in Ukraine for a while, but NATO has felt that this would make the organisation a bigger part of the war against Russia. 

Many countries want to show their engagement in the matter when NATO has activated the air-defense system and Eastern Centry; the British Defence Minister has stated that Britain will contribute with fighter jets, to patrol the airspace above Poland in order to intimidate Russia and protect British allies, according to a Swedish journalist. The British Foreign Minister has also stated that 100 new sanctions should be imposed on Russia. Despite the popular support for aid to Ukraine not being very large in the UK there is support for pressuring Russia economically so the foreign minister will be speaking to President Donald Trump about this. 

In connection with the drone violations, Trump wrote ‘Here we go’, and said to a press gathering that they could have been a mistake, which Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk immediately disagreed with. That the US is not part of the countries supporting the Eastern Sentry with defence armaments, being the biggest country and military force in NATO, can be seen as a point of weakness from Putin’s perspective. He can then propagate this perceived weakness to the Russian people to showcase a fractured West. 

Questions are also being asked about the way that the violations were actually dealt with when they happened, such as how many drones were actually involved and why they were not shot down. Some reports are saying that 3 out of 19 offending drones were shot down, and then the question is why were not more shot down? Ukraine reports shooting down an average of 80-90% of Russian drones. The issue is that we as the public cannot be sure of what happened, maybe 3 were shot down just to make a point, or the 3 that were shot down were deemed to be a threat to civilians or infrastructure? There was also most likely a question of not wanting to escalate the situation or for anyone to get hurt. When Ukraine has shot down drones, whole buildings have collapsed after all. There is also an economic aspect to shooting down the drones; should expensive fighter jets really be used to shoot down expendable and cheap drones? That does not seem like an economically sustainable situation. Is there a cheaper alternative? Drones have become a larger part of modern warfare. According to Zelensky, Russia sent in around 3500 drones to Ukraine in September. Are Europe and NATO ready to meet that kind of warfare?

NATO has stated that the violations have been responded too, and that the response was successful and effective, but there are still possible weaknesses to be perceived. NATO and the West have been saying for a long time that they have a lot to learn from Ukraine which has ongoing experience with war, and some people are now speculating whether NATO could work together with the Ukrainian defence industry. They could come to EU and NATO countries to produce their material, and could in the process support and improve the defence industry of these countries.

Poland is going to receive training from Ukraine in how to shoot the drones down since the country has experience shooting down Russian drones with limited resources, and they are going to have their own drone-legion within the army. There has been a major investment in drone-defence in Poland, alongside general military-defence spending in recent years. Almost 5% of the country’s GDP is spent on defence, and the military states that decisions were made to shoot down the drones that presented a threat to citizens or infrastructure. The Polish military is now, however, receiving criticism about their air defence not being effective enough, nor their intelligence systems for drones and flying objects. The country has been saying for a long time that they will invest in this sort of equipment, but they have not yet been set up. Opposition parties are accusing the government of moving too slowly. 

On the other hand, during the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council about the violations, Poland’s Foreign Minister gave a warning that next time something violates Polish airspace, the country will be able to shoot it down. Russia could condemn the action as hostile, and increase diplomatic and military warnings. The shooting down could be seen as a serious provocation that necessitated a balanced and decisive response. NATO and Poland both emphasize that they are ready to defend their airspace but are also trying to avoid an escalation to war. Putin perceives Europe as trying to avoid armed conflicts at all costs - that is one of the reasons why he feels he can test how far he can go, according to a Swedish journalist.

Russia’s aims and the Estonia incident

On the 20th of September, Estonian airspace was violated by three Russian fighter jets for a total of 12 minutes. This was a clear violation of Estonian airspace, and different from the drone incidents in Romania and Poland since it was a matter of fighter jets.(2) They were flying with a maximum speed of 3 000 km/h, and flying for 12 minutes over a country the size of Estonia could provide vital insight into the country’s military activities at such speeds. It was Finnish jets that intercepted the violating jets, and subsequently Italian F-35 jets based in Estonia were deployed under NATO's Baltic Air Policing Mission to escort them out of Estonia’s airspace. Russia denies any violation of the airspace having taken place, however Estonia claims that this was the fifth time Russia violated their airspace this year. 

The incident led to Estonia requesting urgent talks with its NATO allies. Like the event in Poland, the event is being interpreted as a way of testing NATO’s preparedness and cohesion. The airspace violations increase the risk for incidents, and Tusk has stated that Poland will shoot down Russian fighter jets if they breach Polish airspace. NATO’s Secretary General has been more vague in this matter. There is a serious risk of a confrontation leading to outright war, whereas the general consensus is that Russia wants to keep the situation on the level below war. Russian actions can however still lead to misunderstandings and unexpected, unwanted effects. 

We might wonder what is making Putin test NATO in this way? Or whether his intention is to predominantly test Europe, or even the United States? Through testing his powers in eastern Europe against the countries/borders, he can see what the United States does, how Trump reacts, and how the cohesion in NATO can stand up to the pressure of that kind of provocation - can Russia go further? What happens then? Experts are suggesting that Putin will stretch the limits as far as the world allows him too, and it is in fact believed to be possible that the aim of his operations stretch far beyond the places actually exposed to them. 

Ukraine is claiming that the Russian provocations are not a mistake or by order from a lower ranking officer, but an attempt to expand the war. They express a hope that the world will react together, and help Ukraine to defend its airspace, but are not publicly stating that the world has not reacted strongly enough. 

Russia’s sudden attacks could be interpreted to show that the war of aggression in Ukraine is not going as Russia would have liked. It could be an attempt to overt NATO’s attention from Ukraine and back to its own territory. Potentially, it could also be an attempt to limit the amount of aid given to Ukraine in the form of arms for example; countries could choose to re-prioritize the placement of their resources following violations of their own country's airspaces or that of their NATO allies.

Markus Tsahkna used the morbid analogy of slowly boiling a frog in a pot so that it does not realize it is slowly dying to describe his interpretation of Russia’s tactics. By slowly ramping up their provocations, none of which would necessitate a military response on their own, they are able to test and ultimately undermine NATO’s defenses.