Russia has once again attacked at NATO’s doorstep. 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 attacked western Ukraine near the border with Poland, an EU and NATO member state. “One of them hit 1 km from the Polish border, another 5 km,” wrote Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz on the social network X.
Polish and Ukrainian media report that one of those drones hit the locomotive of a train covering the route between Kiev and Warsaw, near the Dorohusk-Yagodzin crossing, 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, caused no injuries, according to Ukrzaliznytsia, the Ukrainian railway company. Trains were until recently one of the safest ways to travel in the country despite the war, but they have increasingly become targets of Russian attacks. “We are constantly monitoring air threats, ensuring the circulation of trains, and adopting maximum safety measures for passengers and railway employees,” the railway operator reported after the attack.
The offensive is part of this shift towards civilian infrastructure. Also part of an increase in incidents against Ukraine’s borders with its neighbors. This Friday, Polish Prime Minister, conservative Donald Tusk, revealed that cooperation between the authorities of both countries had neutralized a “direct threat” at a border crossing that day, without giving further details.
In recent weeks, Moscow has attacked twice the Ukrainian side of a border crossing on the Danube with Romania, also an EU and NATO member. Incidents have also multiplied this summer near the borders with Moldova, which aspires to join the community bloc. The latest, this week, killed and injured several civilians with a Sahed drone launched against the Starokozache border post in the Odesa region, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Tusk has long been warning 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 exceeding the limit of what is considered hybrid, such as the failed bomb drone attack in August in Leipzig.
Drone incursions 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 teams. This Sunday, Lithuania suspended operations at Vilnius airport and NATO scrambled fighters due to the possible presence of a drone in the country’s airspace.
Romania has also suffered an increase in cases where some 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 air defenses when Russia launches this type of bombing against Ukraine, and its air forces are in a permanent state of vigilance. They did so again in the early hours of this Sunday, and after the operation, in which F16 planes, helicopters, and the SAAB reconnaissance aircraft participated, the Defense Minister reported that “no violation of Polish airspace has been recorded.”
Tusk’s Warning
These permanent threats are now joined by more frequent attacks against Ukraine’s borders, which the authorities interpret as an attempt by Moscow to weaken the allies’ will to continue their economic and military support to the invaded country. “We expect more actions of this kind at border crossings with Ukraine in other countries, including Poland,” Tusk acknowledged in Bratislava during a press conference on Friday.
The Polish Prime Minister insists that Russia is testing the limits and the alliance’s response, to imminently cross the red lines. In the same press conference, Tusk said that CIA Director John Ratcliffe had warned him on Thursday that Poland and Europe must prepare for different scenarios.
“In recent hours, I have received a fairly detailed report directly from the CIA director about possible incidents in the coming months; and this is precisely what I have been saying and warning about for many months,” Tusk emphasized. Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow unexpectedly at the end of August. Anglo-Saxon media claim that the head of US intelligence warned Moscow to avoid attacking NATO partners.
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