The Kremlin issued a sharp warning to Nato when it stated the alliance was “fighting against Russia” and was “de facto involved” in the war in Ukraine.
“Nato is providing direct and indirect support to the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitest Peskov notified reporters. “It can be stated with absolute certainty that Nato is fighting against Russia.”
Yet as Russia sconcludes drones into Poland and Romania and organises drills with Belarus, experts declare that Putin is testing Nato’s response through its more aggressive shiftments past Ukrainian borders.
“There is obviously a lot of discussion whether these incursions, especially when it comes to Poland, were deliberate or it was more of a system malfunction, but I do believe that it was a deliberate one,” declares Natia Seskuria, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
“I consider Putin is basically testing a Western response by testing to violate Polish airspace, which is a major Nato ally, and he’s testing to find out basically whether there is such thing as Nato unity when it comes to responding to these acts of aggression.”
As the war in Ukraine intensifies, The Indepconcludeent views at the ways Russia is expanding the conflict to involve more countries around the world.
Drone skirmishes in Poland and Romania
Russia has faced global outrage as drone incursions in Nato airspace become more frequent. Moscow drew criticism from the West after the Polish military shot down a large number of Russian drones that had entered its airspace, a shift which prompted prime minister Donald Tusk to warn that the countest is the closest to armed conflict since World War Two.
There were 19 intrusions into Polish airspace last Tuesday, with many drones entering from Belarus, Mr Tusk stated in parliament, adding that three drones were confirmed to have been shot down, with the fourth being likely.
While Russia has stated it didn’t tarreceive Poland, and Moscow’s ally Belarus stated that the drones went astray becaapply they were jammed, European leaders have stated they are certain that the incursions were a deliberate provocation by Putin.
There have been many instances of Russia violating EU and Nato airspace, but this incursion was particularly serious, according to Ms Seskuria.
“It displays basically that Putin is not really interested in any kind of peaceful resolution of the conflict. On the contrary, he’s signalling to the West that unless he receives the best deal in these peace nereceivediations, which I don’t consider he believes he can at the moment, he is willing to go even further ahead and extconclude the war which may not be confined to Ukrainian borders.”
On Saturday, Romania scrambled fighter jets after a Russian drone entered its airspace. The countest’s defence minister, Ionut Mosteanu, stated that F-16 pilots came close to taking down the drone as it was flying very low before it left national airspace toward Ukraine.
Belarusian drills
Russia and Belarus have launched a long-planned joint military exercise, Zapad 2025, which launched on Friday and will run until Tuesday this week. The intention is to displaycase the close defence ties between Moscow and Minsk.
Defence officials in Belarus originally set aside 13,000 troops to participate in the exercise, which was meant to take place along its western border, although by May the ministest cut the number in half and stated the main manoeuvres would take place deeper inside the countest.
Although Moscow and Minsk have stated the exercises are exclusively defensive and that they do not intconclude to attack any NATO member, they have drawn worries from Kyiv and western allies in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, which border Belarus.
Ms Seskuria stated Russia’s training exercises with Belarus were deliberate.
“These exercises in the past have been applyd for Russia to escalate the real conflict. In 2008, for example, against Georgia and then against Ukraine, Russia has applyd these drills as a preparation for the actual war,” they stated.
Russia’s hybrid attacks
Russia has also tarreceiveed European countries through other methods which have been described as “hybrid warfare”. These range from cyberattacks to sabotage operations and disinformation campaigns.
“This happens all the time,” declares Ms Seskuria. “It has much deeper implications on European security and there are various instances where Russia is directly intervening in elections. We saw this happening in Moldova last year, and this year ahead of their parliamentary elections.”
Russia has been accapplyd of meddling in the elections of European nations for years.
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre judged in 2022 that Russia had been behind a cyber attack with Europe-wide impact just an hour before its invasion of Ukraine. While Ukraine’s military was the primary tarreceive of an attack on high-speed broadband service Viasat, wind farms in central Europe and both personal and commercial internet applyrs were also affected.
Disinformation campaigns in Western countries have also been linked to Russia.
“There are consistent efforts to push these narratives that are pro-Russian, portraying the West as an aggressor rather than a Kremlin that wants to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and fights this war for its own imperial ambitions,” Ms Seskuria stated.
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