Over the last two weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin tested NATO — and the alliance failed. The sequence of incidents tells the story.
First Moscow sent swarms of drones that forced NATO jets to scramble over Poland and Romania. Romania followed the drones instead of firing missiles costing hundreds of thousands of dollars each, of which a Russian Geran drone is worth only a fraction. The imbalance is obvious. Then three Russian MiG-31 fighters penetrated Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland for 12 minutes on Sept. 19.
These were deliberate moves, not isolated accidents. The Institute for the Study of War noted that “Russia is likely attempting to gauge both Poland’s and NATO’s capabilities and reactions in the hopes of applying lessons learned to future conflict scenarios with the NATO alliance.”
President Trump’s response on Truth Social was a strange remark: “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” Europe shouldn’t be betting on the U.S. to rescue them. Adding to the uncertainty for Europe, on Sept. 15, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “NATO is at war with Russia; this is obvious and needs no proof.”
But this points to a deeper problem. From Crimea in 2014 to the West’s initial reluctance in 2022, a pattern of delay has repeated itself — with predictable consequences. This could have been prevented in 2014 if Europe had acted decisively in Crimea. The lesson is clear. Europe must show force. Russia respects only strength.
Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, Ukraine’s unmanned systems chief, warned in July 2025 that NATO must urgently review its doctrines to prepare for Shaheds flying over Europe. The West moved too slowly. Those warnings are now reality. Russian drones are probing NATO’s defenses, testing the alliance.
Moscow’s willingness to escalate is no accident. It is testing a dangerous new normal by flying drones into Polish airspace, exploiting NATO’s reluctance to act. As analyst Oliver Alexander warned, “The new normal can’t be closing the airspace and disrupting air travel in Eastern Poland whenever Russia decides to launch drone strikes on Western Ukraine.” The economic impact of constant disruptions will be devastating.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is now calling on Western allies to intercept Russian drones and missiles over Ukraine. But the logistics of such an operation would be enormously difficult and Europe wouldn’t be able to sustainably shoot down swarms of cheap drones.
The call is urgent — break the cycle before Moscow normalizes escalation. Yet calls like this were already made in 2022, when the West froze out of fear of provoking Russia. Today, it is Putin who escalates freely while the West hesitates.
Putin is feeling emboldened. Following the Alaska Summit in August, as the West began talking about sending peacekeeping forces to Ukraine, Putin warned that they would be targeted, saying, “we assume that these will be legitimate targets for destruction.” Under Trump’s term, Russia has only intensified its pace of attacks against Ukraine, ignoring his demands for a peace agreement.
The Kremlin has prioritized mass-producing cheap drones, while Poland has focused on high-end systems like Patriots, F-35s and HIMARS to prepare for conventional war. But it has underinvested in affordable counter-drone defenses. Relying on costly jets or missiles to intercept swarms is unsustainable — the cost asymmetry is simply too great.
In a recent televised address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that “action must always be preventive.” Europe, he cautioned, should not “wait for dozens of ‘Shaheds’ and ballistic missiles before finally making decisions.”
Ukrainian cities are already overwhelmed. Expensive air defenses remain scarce, and drone interceptors take time to scale, including training operators.
In July, Maria Berlinska, head of the Victory Drones project, warned there would be no “post-war,” describing the ongoing war as a prelude to a technological Third World War and urging Europe to join Ukraine in building joint defenses against swarms of autonomous drones over cities. Her warning is becoming reality.
Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian lawmaker from the Holos party, told me she fears more Russian drones will flood cities by 2026 and that protective netting will be needed to shield civilians.
Ukraine is currently waging an air campaign against Russian oil refineries to choke off the revenues funding the Kremlin’s war. “As Ukraine develops its long-range strike capabilities, the pressure on Russia will only grow,” said Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute. It has also targeted Shahed drone factories — seeking not just to down the arrow, but to hit the archer. This strategy works.
Ukraine’s summer strikes on Shahed production and storage sites paid off. According to the Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi, launches fell by a third in August — down to 4,132 from 6,303 in July. Russia’s peak attacks shrank from swarms of about 700 drones to roughly 100 or 120, and on some days to only a few dozen. Kyiv has shown it can choke both production and stockpiles of these weapons.
The lesson is not defense alone, but prevention. That means supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles to strike Russian drone factories — and shoot down any Russian fighters that violate NATO airspace.
Moscow’s threat is growing. Half measures will not suffice. When Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in 2015, the Kremlin backed down. The same principle applies today — Russia only respects strength.
David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.
