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The air war over Ukraine spills into the countries next to it. Drones and missiles cross into Poland, Romania and the Baltic states; NATO fighters take off most nights that Russia attacks western Ukraine, and since 2025 they shoot down what crosses the line. Russian military aircraft also fly along and at times inside the borders of the alliance's northern members. Whether these are accidents of a nearby war or deliberate tests is the dispute.
The wider confrontation, its history and each side's full account: Russia and Europe.
On 1 September Latvia and Estonia issued airspace warnings, and Latvia's Alūksne district was placed under an orange airspace alert after drones approached the border. NATO jets scrambled over Estonia during a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's Ust-Luga port. On 17 September Poland shut airports and scrambled fighter jets over a Russian drone threat. A Russian Mi-8 helicopter briefly violated Polish airspace on 23 September, and on 24 September Russian aircraft violated Polish and Moldovan airspace. On 28 September EU ministers agreed the bloc's hybrid response must work hand in hand with NATO.
Intent. Drones are jammed, run out of fuel and stray; they are also cheap ways to measure how fast an alliance reacts and how much it will tolerate.
The response. Shooting down a drone is one thing. Poland and the Baltic states have said they would shoot down a Russian aircraft that crossed the line, as Turkey did in 2015. Others in the alliance fear the war that could follow.
Whose drones. Ukraine's long-range attacks on Russian ports now pass close to the same borders, and some of what falls on NATO soil is Ukrainian.
One drone may be an accident. Twenty in a night, flown deep into Poland, are not, and nor are fighters that cross into Estonia with their transponders off. Russia is probing: how quickly the alliance sees, whether it shoots, whether the allies further west stand with those on the border. Each unanswered crossing invites a bolder one.
Russia's targets are in Ukraine and it has no interest in a clash with NATO. Drones go astray because Ukraine jams them, or are Ukrainian in the first place, and Russia has offered consultations that Warsaw declined. The alliance inflates each incident to justify its build-up and to keep America engaged. Russian aircraft fly in international airspace, as NATO's do daily along Russia's own borders.
The eastern members' leaves out the incidents that turned out to be Ukrainian, from the missile that killed two Poles in 2022 to the drone over Latvia in August 2026, and how readily the first reports blamed Russia.
Moscow's leaves out that it has never explained the mass crossing into Poland, that its pilots ignore radio calls and fly dark near civil air routes, and that its own officials speak of NATO's border states as targets.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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