Intrusions into NATO’s airspace blamed on Russia reached an unprecedented scale this month, raising questions about whether the Kremlin is trying to test the alliance’s willingness and ability to respond to a direct attack or divert its attention and resources from the war in Ukraine.
Russia has been encroaching on its NATO neighbors’ airspace for decades, then either denying it happened or brushing it off as unintentional. But since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, such incursions have carried a bigger threat, none more so than when drones swarmed into Poland two weeks ago and caused NATO to scramble jets to shoot them down.
Estonia said Russian fighter jets flew into its territory last week and remained there for 12 minutes — an incursion Estonia’s foreign minister described as “unprecedently brazen” but that Russia denied happened. And Romania and Latvia reported that single Russian drones violated their airspace this month.
With Moscow making slow but steady progress on the battlefield in Ukraine and holding a strong hand should it decide to talk peace, its recent forays into NATO airspace also raise questions about why it would risk triggering a direct military confrontation with the alliance.
Here’s a look at what’s been happening and what Russia’s motives might be:
These incursions are different
None of the intrusions of NATO airspace has had the scope of what happened in Poland on Sept. 10, when authorities say about 20 Russian drones flew deep over the countryside before being shot down by NATO jets or crashing on their own. It marked the first direct military engagement between the alliance and Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia denied that it targeted Poland, and its ally Belarus claimed the drones’ signals had been jammed by Ukraine, which borders Poland. But European leaders have cast it as a deliberate provocation, pointing to last week’s violation of Estonian airspace and other recent incidents as further proof of some broader scheme orchestrated by Moscow.
Russia’s possible motives
Before invading Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin demanded that NATO drop any plans to offer Kyiv membership in the alliance and roll back troop deployments near Russia’s borders, including in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, small former Soviet republics that joined NATO and the EU in the early 2000s. NATO rejected the demands.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also warned NATO to not allow Kyiv to strike deep inside Russia with Western-supplied longer-range weapons, threatening that Moscow could respond by targeting military facilities in NATO countries that enable such attacks. Doing so would carry huge risks, including for Moscow, as it could spark a direct conflict between Russia and NATO, which has a huge edge in conventional weapons.
Some experts view the recent uptick in NATO airspace incursions as an attempt by Russia to see how the alliance reacts so that it can exploit any fissures or indecision. And some believe Russia is hoping to divert NATO’s attention and resources from supporting Ukraine to defending its own territory.
“Maybe their calculation was that now the European countries have to send something additionally to Estonia regarding the air defense assets, and that means they cannot send it to Ukraine,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said. “Russia is trying to tear us out from Ukraine.”
Mark Galeotti, an expert in Russian politics who heads the Mayak Intelligence consultancy, thinks the intrusions are part of a “coercive signaling” aimed at discouraging NATO members from offering robust security guarantees to Kyiv, including the possible deployment of their troops to Ukraine as part of a peace deal. Moscow has warned that it won’t accept any NATO troops in Ukraine.
“This is Moscow trying to say, ‘Just look how dangerous things already are and how dangerous they could get. Remember we are more daring, willful, reckless, resolute — use whatever adjective you want, but the point is, we are more of it.’” Galeotti said on a podcast.
Edward Lucas, senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said Russia might be trying to highlight NATO’s weaknesses to try to “plant the corrosive question in allies’ minds: Are you willing to go to war with Russia on behalf of the Baltic states?”
“Russia does not need to defeat NATO militarily if it can defeat it politically,” Lucas wrote in an analysis. “If alliance members do not believe that other members will come to their aid when they are attacked, they feel isolated.”
Russia specifically might have wanted to gauge the reaction of NATO’s biggest member, the U.S., said Max Bergmann, head of Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“I think it was quite underwhelming,” he said of the U.S.’s response to the incursions. “I think what we are seeing is the United States under President Trump doesn’t feel responsible for European security, and that will be quite enlightening to the Russians. They may escalate even more.”
NATO’s response and the US role
After its drone swarm incident, Poland triggered a NATO mechanism that allows any member to demand a full meeting if it believes its territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened. Soon after, the alliance launched an operation to bolster its air defenses along its eastern flank.
NATO held discussions again Tuesday in response to the Russian fighter jets that flew into Estonian airspace and warned Moscow that it would any and all means to defend against further breaches.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland would, “without discussion,” shoot down any object that flies into its territory.
But it’s unclear if all NATO allies would back such an aggressive approach, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte saying Tuesday that decisions on whether to fire on intruding aircraft would be based on “available intelligence regarding the threat posed by the aircraft.”
U.S. President Donald Trump, who initially stunned allies by saying the Russian drones’ intrusion into Polish airspace “could have been a mistake,” sent a tougher message Tuesday, answering affirmatively when asked whether NATO should shoot down intruding Russian aircraft. He demurred, though, when prodded if the U.S. would step in to back the alliance in such case.
