Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at Brussels and United Nations Security Council representatives at New York will discuss today Russia’s unprecedented launching of 23 drones into Poland on Wednesday. This air invasion prompted the first military action by NATO forces against Russian assets in the Russia-Ukraine war.

As the dust has settled from the flight by Russian drones, it is clear that the aircraft were sent to probe Polish air defenses and response times. All the drones were apparently unarmed, designed for reconnaissance. Although the damage was minimal, unsettling truths have emerged.

“Our air defenses were activated and successfully ensured the defense of NATO territory, as they are designed to do,” NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, crowed. However, in reality, Poland and NATO failed the test. North Atlantic Treaty Organization assets shot down four drones, a 17 percent kill rate. 

On the same pre-dawn morning, Wednesday, Ukraine shot down 93 percent of 415 Russian drones fired at Ukraine. Yesterday morning, Ukraine shot down 94 percent of 66 Russian drones fired at Ukraine. Yesterday, President  Volodymyr Zelensky offered to teach Poles how to shoot down drones.

To defend Polish airspace, North Atlantic allies put about $1 billion worth of military equipment in the air: Polish F-16 fighter jets, Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS surveillance planes, and NATO mid-air refuelling aircraft. NATO used $1 million missiles to shoot down $10,000 Gerbera drones. Made of plywood, styrofoam, and over-the-counter parts, these Communist Chinese-designed drones are largely used by Russia for reconnaissance or as decoys for bigger drones carrying bombs.

Five drones were headed for Rzeszow airport. Situated 60 miles west of the Ukrainian border, Rzeszow is the main logistics hub for Western aid going to Ukraine. 

“The states of the alliance have not bothered to prepare properly for not only future war — but that war is staring them right now in the face,” a strategic studies professor at St Andrews University, Scotland, Phillips O’Brien, writes in a substack post headlined, “Nato States Have Failed,” that it was “a pinprick compared to what Ukraine experiences nightly.”

Also of concern, the Russian drone incursion into eastern Poland did not happen in a vacuum. Today marks the start of a five-day Russian military exercise in Belarus, Poland’s neighbor to the east. In the past, Russia has used military exercises as covers for invasion preparations. This occurred in 2008 against Georgia and in 2022 for the main invasions of Ukraine. Today’s exercise is called “Zapad,” or West. It is Russia’s first Zapad since launching its full bore invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In response, Poland yesterday posted 40,000 troops near its eastern border and closed its land border crossings with Russia and with Belarus. Poland also closed for three months the airspace on its eastern border along a strip that is between 25 miles and 45 miles wide.

Flying westward over Ukraine, none of Russia’s drones strayed over the territory of  Russia’s two allies in Central Europe, Hungary or Slovakia. Instead they targeted Poland, a nation of 36 million, and a sworn enemy of Russia. A public opinion poll conducted in Poland in June by the Pew Research Center found that 94 percent of respondents see Russia as “a major threat” and 94 percent have no confidence in President Vladimir Putin.

Moscow derides Polish and European jitters over the drones. On state TV, a Russian Duma deputy, Alexey Zhuravlyov, mocked: “All of Europe is squealing.” A nationalist from the Rodina or Motherland party, he said that if Russia really wanted to cause Poland problems, it would have struck the airport at Rzeszow.

Against this backdrop, Poles and other Europeans desperately look to Washington for a clear signal that the Trump administration will back Europe against Russia. “This is the moment when the world finds out whether the United States remains committed to the defense of its allies,” a neoconservative scholar, Robert Kagan, wrote yesterday in an Atlantic essay titled: “The Beginning of the End of NATO.”

If President Trump “does nothing in response to a Russian attack on Poland,” Mr. Kagan writes, “Europeans will have to stop fooling themselves and face the fact that the Americans really aren’t there for them.”

Although the drone incursion came one week after Mr. Trump hosted Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, at the White House, the American commander in chief’s response has been mild. Asked at the White House about the incursion yesterday, Mr. Trump told reporters: “It could have been a mistake.” 

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, replied in an X post today: “We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it.”

Many Europeans fear that without a strong American response, Russian drones flying into former Warsaw Pact nations could become a new normal. The drones prompted officials to temporarily close four of Poland’s largest airports. Ireland-based Ryanair, the world’s biggest airline, suffered major schedule disruptions in Eastern Europe.

“This kind of irritant, Russia irritating Europe, Russia playing games with Europe, will continue,” Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, told shareholders yesterday. “This is going to be an ongoing issue for all airlines and all European citizens for the next number of years.”

The geopolitical implications for the future struck Bloomberg columnist Marc Champion, who wrote: “Nobody should in future be able to dismiss as ridiculous the idea that Russia — struggling so mightily in Ukraine — would ever take on a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member. It just did.”

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Correction: Communist China is the country that designed the drones used in the Polish incursion. An earlier version misstated the country.