Across Europe’s eastern flank, airspace violations, drone incursions and missile strikes are blurring the line between indirect conflict and open war. Western intelligence officials now warn that a single miscalculation — a stray drone, a downed jet, or a misread radar signal — could ignite the largest armed confrontation on the continent since 1945. A senior NATO diplomat told Politico that “if a Russian drone kills civilians inside NATO territory, the pressure to respond militarily will be enormous.” Each provocation forces the alliance closer to its mutual-defence clause and the nightmare scenario of direct war with Moscow.
At the United Nations General Assembly last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said NATO and the European Union “have already declared a real war on my country and are directly participating in it.” Speaking during the G20 meetings in New York, Lavrov accused the US-led alliance of arming Ukraine, providing battlefield intelligence, and waging economic warfare designed to “cripple” Russia.
While insisting Moscow had “no intention” of attacking EU or NATO states, Lavrov warned that Russia would deliver a “decisive response” to any Western aggression. His words — coupled with fresh Russian airstrikes and new US weapons debates — signalled that the conflict, once confined to Ukraine, is now a Europe-wide security crisis.
The most recent escalation came on 5 October, when Poland rapidly mobilised fighter jets after Russia launched airstrikes on Ukraine’s Lviv region, less than 80 kilometres from the Polish border.
“Polish and allied aircraft are operating intensively in our airspace, while ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have reached the highest state of readiness,” Poland’s operational command said on X.
It was the latest in a growing series of tense confrontations pushing Europe ever closer to the brink. In early September, Poland shot down several Russian drones that violated its airspace, temporarily shutting down Warsaw’s international airport and forcing NATO into a rare defensive posture. Just weeks later, Denmark was forced to close its airspace after a surge of drone activity near the Skrydstrup Air Base, highlighting how Moscow’s aerial provocations are increasingly testing the alliance’s readiness and unity. The Lviv assault was part of this escalating pattern. On 28 September, Poland also scrambled jets and closed sections of its airspace as Russia unleashed a 12-hour barrage on Kyiv, deploying nearly 500 attack drones and 40 missiles. Polish radar systems were placed on their highest state of alert, while NATO F-35s patrolled the skies over Lublin and Rzeszów — critical corridors for Western military shipments to Ukraine.
Three Russian drones had been shot down inside Polish territory when multiple Danish airports were forced to suspend operations amid swarms of unidentified drones — a sign that Russia’s hybrid tactics are now targeting not just Ukraine, but the very edge of NATO itself. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius summarised the European mood bluntly: “We are not at war, but we are also no longer at complete peace. We are being attacked both in disinformation campaigns and now also by drones.”
An Axios investigation found that, by late September, Russia had violated the airspace of at least four NATO countries — Norway, Estonia, Poland, and Romania — while Denmark faced ongoing drone incursions. NATO officials believe Moscow is deliberately probing the alliance’s defences and political unity, seeking to expose hesitation and divide member states. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described the situation as evidence that a “hybrid war” is already being fought on European soil.Against this volatile situation, US President Donald Trump has signalled a dramatic policy shift. After years of caution towards Moscow, Trump announced he supports shooting down Russian aircraft if airspace violations persist — and confirmed his administration is weighing the transfer of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. Tomahawks, capable of striking targets up to 1,000 miles away, would give Kyiv the ability to hit deep inside Russian territory, including airbases and logistical hubs supporting the invasion.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded that the move would represent a “qualitative escalation,” asking pointedly whether US personnel would help operate or target the missiles. “Any participation by Americans in using these systems would mean the United States has entered the war,” Peskov warned. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev added his own threat, promising a “nuclear response that no bomb shelter can protect against”. Zelenskyy, by contrast, endorsed Trump’s tougher line: “They have to shoot down everything. If the jets are in your space, you have to block it.”
Still, many Western leaders remain cautious. France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told Axios that Paris backs strengthening NATO’s rules of engagement but “would probably not go as far as shooting down a plane.”
No NATO state has mobilised more vigorously than Poland, now spending 4.7 per cent of GDP on defence — the highest ratio in the alliance. Warsaw fields NATO’s third-largest active army and has enrolled tens of thousands of civilian volunteers in military-training programmes. “Russian aggression since 2022 has convinced ordinary citizens that they must be ready to defend their country,” said Colonel Grzegorz Wawrzynkiewicz, head of Poland’s Central Recruitment Centre. Meanwhile, Estonia is digging anti-tank trenches along its frontier, Germany and France are drafting plans for wartime hospital capacity, and Denmark is hardening critical infrastructure against cyber and drone attacks. The EU has expanded intelligence-sharing and fast-tracked new air defence deployments on NATO’s eastern flank.
Analysts across Europe warn that both sides are playing, as it were, on the margins of catastrophe. Each new provocation increases the risk of an accidental clash — a Russian drone straying too far, a NATO jet responding too fast. Lavrov’s declaration that NATO and the EU have already declared a “real war” may have been rhetorical, but the events unfolding across Europe make it look increasingly literal. As Zelenskyy warned after the latest strikes, “Putin will not wait to finish his war in Ukraine. He will open up some other direction. Nobody knows where.”
With Tomahawk missiles under discussion, airspace alerts rising, and European armies mobilising, the line separating deterrence from direct engagement grows thinner each week. Both Moscow and NATO say they want to avoid a broader war, yet their actions suggest they are preparing for exactly that. Europe stands once again on the edge of confrontation, and the distance between rhetoric and conflict has never been shorter.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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