MARK ALMOND: Putin was testing the West's resolve with his drone incursion in Poland - one false move could trip the wires between the nuclear superpowers
Are we teetering on the edge of World War Three after the brazen incursion by Russia’s drones into our ally Poland’s airspace?
No one needs to be reminded that the Second World War began with Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939.
Poland’s often tragic history has shown it to be the victim of its geography: a great nation sandwiched between even greater powers, Germany and Russia. It has been repeatedly fought over as the route to European domination between Berlin and Moscow.
Only in the past 35 years has Poland seemed to gain security. Germany had long renounced its old imperialist ambitions and the collapse of communism led to Poland’s independence from the Kremlin in 1990.
Russia was weaker and smaller in the 1990s than any time since Peter the Great turned his empire into a military superpower 300 years ago.
Joining Nato and the EU seemed to confirm Poland had finally found a safe haven in a turbulent world – until Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 punctured Poland’s sense of security. Ever since Russian tanks rolled across the borders, Poles and Western strategists have asked the same question: who will the Kremlin target next?
Until yesterday morning, the consensus was clear. Small, militarily weak nations on Russia’s border – the Baltic states, for example – looked the most likely ‘soft’ targets.
Poland, by contrast, seemed a far tougher prospect. With a population the size of Spain’s and a rapidly modernising military, Warsaw boasts the second-largest standing army in Nato after Turkey – double the size of France or Germany. Britain’s 76,000 troops may be first-class, but Poland has over 300,000 more and spends almost 5 per cent of its GDP on defence. It has splashed out on cutting-edge American fighters and hundreds of South Korean tanks.
Vladimir Putin acted brazenly by launching drones into Polish - and Nato - airspace this week
Yet on Tuesday night, the Polish military recorded 19 drone incursions in the country’s airspace – many from Belarus. Prime minister Donald Tusk revealed that three or four drones were shot down by Polish and Nato aircraft that were scrambled to deal with the threat.
Russia’s allies in Belarus have tried to dismiss the drone attacks as an ‘accident’. But no one in Warsaw is fooled: one drone could be interpreted as a mistake – but so many, at the same time?
No, this was a deliberate test by Putin of Nato’s resolve.
He is old enough to have been taught Lenin’s dictum: ‘Advance with your bayonet. If you meet steel, retreat. If you meet flesh, press on.’
Moscow will surely have been watching as representatives from Britain, France, Italy, Poland and Germany met in London yesterday to discuss how to respond to Russia’s incursion into Poland.
But it was difficult to feel that any of them were prepared to meet Putin with ‘steel’ as they deliberated about what to do, seemingly unprepared for this eventuality.
Just a day before, Germany’s new chancellor Friedrich Merz had given a speech to foreign ambassadors in Berlin about international threats without mentioning his eastern neighbour Poland – an indication of how blindsided Nato was by Putin’s latest provocation.
Time and again since the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Nato has been playing catch-up. After three years of war in Ukraine, its member states have not agreed on how to react to any predictable overflow of Russia’s invasion there – let alone Russian action inside their airspace or, God forbid, on the ground in their countries.
However, Poland’s bitter historical experience has left its politicians and people psychologically better prepared for a military test than most countries further west. While few modern German youths (even fewer than Gen Z Brits), can contemplate fighting to defend their country, let alone its allies, Poles understand that their recent freedoms are priceless.
The way Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland remains seared into their national memory.
Their greatest catastrophe – at least 20 per cent of the population perished in the Second World War – was born of collusion between Berlin and Moscow.
In 1944, when Poles rose against their Nazi occupiers in Warsaw, Stalin halted the Red Army’s pursuit of the defeated German army at the outskirts of Warsaw. He even denied British and American planes permission to drop aid over the territory.
Hitler’s forces butchered 250,000 Poles before blowing the capital to rubble – and Stalin’s troops then marched in as supposed ‘liberators’.
So for Poles, their country’s tragedy was as much Moscow’s fault as Berlin’s. And for the Russians, this is not just politics, but a grudge match born of centuries of bloodshed.
Putin may also be gambling that recent quarrels between Poles and Ukrainians – over historic grievances and Warsaw’s refusal to send troops to a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine – reflect Polish reluctance to stand up for their own country. He is likely to find out just how wrong he is.
The critical question is what Europe will do next.
Will Nato’s ‘awkward squad’ – Slovakia and Hungary – back their EU ally, or will their leaders Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán keep buying Russian oil and blocking firm EU action?
Those countries in Western Europe which are slowly re-arming will not be enough to sway Putin’s next move.
It is Donald Trump who holds the fate of Europe and world peace in his hands. Tough talk will not be enough. Nor will trying to sweet-talk Putin.
America has to lead a clear response which can deter any risk-taking by Russia. Otherwise one false move could trip the wires between nuclear superpowers.
Mark Almond is the director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford.
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