Russia has once again attacked NATO's doors. The recent campaign against border crossings between Ukraine and its allies adds a new blow this Sunday. The Polish Defense Minister has reported that a swarm of Geran-5 drones has attacked western Ukraine on the edge of the border with Poland, a member state of the EU and the Atlantic Alliance. “One of them hit 1 km from the border with Poland, another 5 km,” wrote Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz on the social network X.
Polish and Ukrainian media report that one of these drones has hit the locomotive of a train that covered the route between kyiv and Warsaw, near the Dorohusk-Yagodzin pass, a short distance from the border. “Putin escalates the conflict,” tweeted Radoslaw Sikorski, deputy prime minister and head of Polish diplomacy.
The incident, which also set fire to a gas station and several trucks, did not cause any injuries, according to Ukrzaliznytsia, the Ukrainian railway company. Trains were until relatively recently one of the safest ways to travel in the country, despite the war, but they have increasingly become a target of Russian attacks. “We are constantly monitoring air threats, guaranteeing the movement of trains and adopting maximum security measures for passengers and railway employees,” the railway operator reported after the attack.
The offensive is part of that shift towards civilian infrastructure. Also of an increase in incidents against Ukraine's borders with its neighbors. This Friday, the Polish Prime Minister, the conservative Donald Tusk, revealed that cooperation between the authorities of both countries had neutralized that day a “direct threat” at a border crossing, of which he did not give further details.
In recent weeks, Moscow has twice attacked the Ukrainian side of a border crossing on the Danube with Romania, also a member of the EU and NATO. Incidents have also multiplied this summer near the borders with Moldova, which aspires to join the community bloc. The last one, this week, killed and injured several civilians with a Sahed drone launched against the Starokozache border post, in the Odessa region, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Tusk has been warning for some time of the imminent threat of a Russian attack against NATO on the Eastern flank. Moscow has intensified its operations against the Alliance in the gray zone, a space of confrontation below the threshold of open armed conflict. Sabotage actions, cyberattacks, disinformation and espionage have escalated to a dangerous level, with incidents that exceed the limit of what is considered hybrid, such as the failed drone bomb attack in August in Leipzig.
The incursion of drones into the airspace of states bordering Ukraine or Russia have also intensified in recent months. Explosive devices have fallen in the Baltic republics, some of Ukrainian origin diverted by Russian electronic warfare equipment. This Sunday, Lithuania has suspended operations at the Vilnius airport and NATO has activated fighter jets due to the possible presence of a drone in the country's airspace.
Romania has also seen an increase in the number of cases in which a Russian projectile ends up on its side of the border, amid Moscow's large-scale attacks with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and long-range unmanned systems.
Warsaw systematically activates its anti-aircraft defenses when Russia launches this type of bombing against Ukraine and its air forces are in a permanent state of surveillance. They also did so in the early hours of this Sunday and after the operation, in which F16 planes, helicopters and the SAAB aerial reconnaissance plane participated, the Minister of Defense reported that “no violation of Polish airspace has been recorded.”
Added to these permanent threats are now the more frequent attacks against Ukraine's borders, which the authorities translate as an attempt by Moscow to weaken the will of the allies to continue their economic and military support for the invaded country. “We expect more actions of this type at border crossings with Ukraine in other countries, including Poland,” Tusk acknowledged in Bratislava in an appearance on Friday.
The Polish Prime Minister insists that Russia is testing the limits and response of the alliance, to cross the red lines imminently. In the same appearance, Tusk said that CIA Director John Ratcliffe had warned him on Thursday that Poland and Europe must prepare for different scenarios.
