Putin Goes There

Early Wednesday morning, approximately a dozen Russian drones entered the airspace over eastern Poland. Most or all were shot down by Polish and Dutch fighter jets with assistance from German and Italian air defense systems. “It was the first time in the history of NATO that alliance fighters had engaged enemy targets in allied airspace,” reported The New York Times.

The Russians have so far given inconsistent answers to questions about the incursion—saying alternatively that it was an accident and that there is no proof it happened. Donald Trump responded, somewhat inscrutably, on social media “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” 

Why would Russia have made such a provocative move? What might it mean for Western security? I had a phone conversation about this with a source who has had a decades-long career in the U.S. military and the intelligence community, serving both in and out of government. The source requested anonymity to speak freely. The following Q&A has been edited for clarity. 

What was your immediate reaction to this news?

It’s initial reporting. More information will certainly come out over time. But two things caught my attention. First, the dozen or so drones were launched amidst 450 others that were attacking Ukraine, which is a relatively limited number. Second, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. A few crossed into Poland last week. 

Is there a chance we’ve been doing the same to Russia?

I don’t think so. We typically will approach a country’s airspace and then fly parallel along it but not enter it. Also, we typically fly aircraft loaded with SIGNIT (signal intelligence) and other electronic collectors.  We can collect a lot without violating airspace. In a war time scenario like you see with Russia and Ukraine, we are typically even more restrained, we don’t want to trigger a direct confrontation.

Why do you think Russia is doing this?

This is just classic Russian behavior.  A little probing, looking for a reaction.  It’s part of their campaign a to see how far they could push the Poles. Can they violate their airspace with impunity? Or are the Poles going to do something, and if so, what? It’s an opportunity for the Russians to gather intel. Which forces reacted? How quickly? From which air bases? What kind of radars light up? It’s useful information to have in case someday you have a future attack. 

What do you make of how the Poles reacted?

They reacted appropriately. The involvement of the Dutch Air Force was key. It immediately signals back to the Russia “we’re not taking this, it’s serious business, it’s a NATO violation.” The Russians were trying to figure out, would this prompt a NATO response, just a Polish response, or no response at all? They just found out they got a full NATO response—which, in that time frame, with things happening so fast, is impressive. 

What do you make of the U.S. response so far?

A typical C minus out of Donald Trump. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s ambivalent about NATO. He doesn’t have a functioning State Department, NSC, or anything else to advise him. So, he’s shooting from the hip and failing to strongly condemn Russia’s actions. Any previous U.S. president would have said that this was unacceptable aggression, and we stand by Poland. We obviously didn’t get that out of Trump. The Europeans are showing they’re serious about defending NATO. And in the United States, you have the waffler-in-chief. This is all helpful to the Russians.

What do you think comes next?

The ball is in Russia’s court. They got a serious message in response to their incursion. I personally would expect them to lay off for a while, and maybe in a month or six weeks, do it again.

I don’t think they want to go to a war with Poland. They’re not even winning the war they started in Ukraine. In fact, the Ukrainians are getting increasingly proficient at degrading Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure, which basically underwrites the whole Russian economy.  

What Russia is doing is throwing their weight around and seeing what’s going to happen, looking for fissures and cracks, seeing how NATO reacts—and again, kudos to the Poles and the Dutch and in a very strong NATO response. But Moscow got out of the TACO what you’d expect they’d get out of the TACO. 

The danger is that they are really escalating this. For all these decades of the Cold War, both sides were always somewhat restrained with each other. The fear was that things could spiral out of control, and you can have an accident that leads to basically unintended consequences. So, Poland and other Europeans are now telling the Russians, if you do this, you’re going to get a strong response, and you saw it. And is that really what you want to be doing? 

Is it possible that we’ll look back on this and see that Putin made a tactical error here, that the effect of this probe was to put more of a fear of God into the population of Europe and make it easier for its leaders to increase their defense spending?

The European public is already afraid, but this just reinforces it. The Europeans collectively totally have Putin’s number, unlike our president. They are already throwing money at their defense as fast as they can. This is just one more “I told you so,” or one more piece of evidence for EU leaders who are calling for a stronger response to Russia. So, in that sense, that was not a good move by Russia. You helped steel the resolve of the Europeans. 

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