On a September night in 2025, Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace during a larger strike on Ukraine. Polish F-16s and Dutch F-35s scrambled; airborne early-warning aircraft, tankers and ground-based systems joined the effort. Several drones were shot down. NATO invoked Article 4 consultations. The episode was costly in resources yet swift, coordinated and collective. It demonstrated that the alliance could respond decisively when its eastern flank was probed.
A year later, the mood in Western capitals is more unsettled. According to British intelligence sources Vladimir Putin is preparing some form of direct confrontation with NATO within the next couple of months. The reported aim is to test the new British government of Andy Burnham, who succeeded Keir Starmer as prime minister, while Donald Trump’s attention is absorbed by Iran. Moscow is said to believe that political transition in London, divisions within Ukraine’s leadership and American distraction create an opening to probe for weakness without necessarily triggering full-scale war. Similar assessments regarding a possible Russian provocation against a Baltic state or Poland were made by several other Western countries, including the US.
The warning is not of an armoured thrust into the Suwałki Gap. It is of calibrated pressure designed to expose uncertainty. Whether the assessment proves accurate is impossible to verify publicly. Intelligence reflects probabilities, not certainties. Yet the pattern it describes – grey-zone activity intensified at moments of perceived Western distraction – matches Russia’s behaviour since 2022.
From hybrid operations to a limited military strike: scenarios experts consider plausible
Polish public opinion remains relatively calm. A poll conducted for “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” found that 60% of Poles believe Russia is too deeply committed in Ukraine to risk attacking a NATO member. Only a quarter consider an attack on Poland itself plausible in the coming months; 15% think a strike on another ally is more likely. These figures suggest that repeated political warnings have not produced widespread alarm.
Polish officials are more cautious. Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has acknowledged that provocations are possible even if a full-scale attack is not. He has described the risk of a false-flag operation – perhaps involving drones presented as Ukrainian – as “completely real”. Estonian military intelligence takes a similar line: Moscow uses threats to weaken Western support for Ukraine, but shows no signs of preparing a large conventional operation against the Baltic states in the near term.
Analysts distinguish between three broad possibilities. The first, and most probable in the short term, is an intensification of hybrid activity. This includes sabotage of critical infrastructure, cyber attacks, GNSS jamming and spoofing, and pressure through the so-called shadow fleet of ageing tankers. The Baltic Sea is especially exposed. Poland now routes a large share of its energy imports through the sea—via the Baltic Pipe, LNG terminals and planned offshore wind farms. Dozens of subsea cables and pipelines criss-cross the shallow, busy waters. A single well-placed incident, or a series of ambiguous ones, could disrupt energy supplies or communications without meeting the legal threshold for an “armed attack” under Article 5.
A second scenario involves a more visible provocation that still falls short of open war: a drone incursion presented as navigational error, a cyber operation attributed to “independent” hackers, or an incident at sea blamed on an accident. The goal would be to force NATO into repeated, visible decisions about how to respond, testing political cohesion rather than military capacity.
The third, and least likely in the immediate future, is a limited conventional or missile strike. Experts such as Anna Maria Dyner of the Polish Institute of International Affairs note that Russia might consider escalation if it believes it is losing momentum in Ukraine. Even then, most analysts expect any such move to be carefully calibrated to avoid triggering Article 5. The treaty contains no automatic “incident counter”. A decision to invoke collective defence would be political, not mechanical.
Poland’s preparations: a larger army and an increased NATO footprint
Poland has taken concrete steps to reduce vulnerability. Its armed forces are expanding rapidly. NATO has reinforced air policing and surveillance on the eastern flank; the “Eastern Sentry” initiative, launched after the 2025 drone incident, aims to improve integrated air defence and counter-drone capabilities. Polish and allied aircraft, radars and ground systems now operate with greater interoperability.
Infrastructure protection is harder. The Baltic cannot be guarded kilometre by kilometre. The emphasis is therefore on resilience: deeper cable burial, redundant routes, rapid repair capacity and closer cooperation between operators, the military and intelligence services. Exercises involving police, special forces and energy companies have become routine at LNG terminals and other critical sites. Cybersecurity has also improved, though Russian-linked groups continue to target Polish transport and energy networks.
Civil preparedness receives less attention than military modernisation but is equally important. Poland is expanding its civil defence structures for people who would not be mobilised in a conflict. The aim is not to turn civilians into soldiers but to ensure that society can function when power, communications or transport are disrupted. Public opinion data suggest most Poles do not expect war imminently; that calm is an asset provided it does not slide into complacency.
The real danger: a perception that NATO is weak or hesitant
The greatest risk is not a dramatic invasion but a succession of ambiguous incidents that gradually erode confidence in deterrence. Each event may be containable on its own. Cumulatively they can create the impression that NATO is unwilling or unable to respond firmly. Moscow’s calculation, if the British intelligence assessment is correct, is that a new British government and an American president focused elsewhere may hesitate or divide.
Poland’s task is to make that calculation appear unattractive. That requires continued military investment, tighter integration with NATO, visible protection of Baltic infrastructure and credible plans for civil resilience. It also requires political discipline: responding firmly to genuine threats while avoiding rhetoric that exaggerates every incident into the prelude to war.
The September 2025 drone episode showed that NATO can act together when challenged. The coming months will test whether that unity holds when the challenge is less spectacular but more persistent. For Poland and its allies, the measure of success will not be the absence of incidents but the ability to absorb them without losing cohesion or resolve.
