Key Points and Summary – Up to 23 Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace on September 9, a pattern analysts say was no accident.
-By skirting Slovakia and Hungary while targeting Poland, Moscow sent a calibrated warning: Warsaw’s support for Ukraine carries risk and NATO’s Article 5 resolve is being tested.
-Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged calm, yet critics argue “life as normal” is no longer tenable. NATO’s Mark Rutte vowed allies will defend every inch, but rhetoric must be matched by economic, political, and military measures at scale.
-The incursion also taunted President Trump, challenging U.S. credibility. The next move will determine deterrence—or drift.
Beyond Ukraine: Is Putin Preparing for Action Against Poland?
Up to 23 Russian drones violated Polish airspace in the night of September 9. As military historian Phillips O’Brien concludes on the basis of the drones’ flight paths, “This was definitely a Russian attack. How do we know—well all the UAVs [Unmanned aerial vehicles] went into Poland—none went into the airspace of Russia’s allies Slovakia and Hungary…. The Russians were given their allies a wide berth and only attacking Poland. That cannot have been an accident…. I know Russian systems have high flaw rates—but 14 systems making their way into Poland had to be deliberate.”
Indeed, the violation of Polish airspace was a deliberate act of aggression, an attack, in my view. At the same time, the small number of drones clearly suggests that the attack was not meant to start a war, but to signal to Poland, NATO, and Donald Trump that Russia could, if it wanted to, start a war.
The attack was a signal.
Poland was being warned that its support of Ukraine could lead to a serious Russian escalation, perhaps by additional drones, perhaps by missiles, perhaps by infantry and armor in Poland’s north.
Russia’s illegitimate president, Vladimir Putin, was telling Poland that Russia had the capability and will to expand its war against Ukraine to Poland.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk remarked that, although “The situation is serious”… “there is no reason to panic.” True. Where Tusk erred was in concluding that “Life will continue as normal.” No, it won’t. Poland is now a target of Russian warmongering, and life for Poles will never be the same.
NATO was being tested about the seriousness of its Article 5 commitment to respond to an armed attack on one of its members militarily, and not with unctuous sermons and expressions of concern.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte spoke well in his response to the attack: “Allies expressed solidarity with Poland and denounced Russia’s reckless behaviour. … What is clear is that the violation last night is not an isolated incident. … Allies are resolved to defend every inch of Allied territory.”
NATO Must Respond
Realizing that Europe’s security is dependent on Ukraine’s security, Rutte also noted that “Russia is waging a dangerous war of aggression against Ukraine that continually targets civilians and civilian infrastructure. Allies are determined to step up their support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s escalating campaign.”
But, while solidarity, resolve, and determination are nice, they won’t defend Ukraine and Poland or deter Putin. And if NATO can’t or won’t respond with appropriate economic, political, and military measures, then its future will be very much in doubt.
Finally, the attack was a poke in Trump’s eye. Putin signaled the US president that he doesn’t take him and America seriously, that they are lightweights who can be ridiculed, insulted, and provoked at will.
And who will be too terrified to respond. In effect, Putin is telling Trump that he’s a weak-kneed president.
It’s now up to the US president to prove Putin wrong.
About the Author: Dr. Alexander Motyl, Rutgers University
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
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Swamplaw Yankee
September 10, 2025 at 9:40 am
The op-ed site has the good fortune to hear from a Yankee who also is a real Ukrainian. What a change from all those fellow academics of his who pretend they are Ukrainian experts and have just bet a $100,000 at the racetrack of info. -30-
Jim
September 10, 2025 at 10:53 am
Supposedly, drones into Polish airspace, but no incidents on the ground.
Doesn’t sound like an attack against Poland. A warning to Poland or a provocation… could be, but about what I wouldn’t know.
I look forward to the presentation of physical evidence since there are claims some drones were shot down.
Certainly, there are many who want to re-enlist the portraiture and characterization of the Russians as evil aggressors given the flagging support among the Western public for continuing the war.
The concerned Polish and NATO authorities should take up an offer from Russia to have consultations and clear the air… to the extent possible.
One can not exclude the possibility, how likely I don’t know, of a false flag attempt by Ukraine. Everybody knows Kiev wants military intervention by NATO because that’s the only conceivable way Kiev can hold out much longer. I remember an earlier missile flew into Poland and killed two farmers, which initially Kiev claimed was a Russian missile and demanded NATO intervention, but later turned out to be an off-course Ukraine missile or a deliberate attempt to induce Poland and NATO into the war.
So, let’s see what shakes out of this incident regarding the best evidence currently available.
Seemingly, war supporters know something dramatic is necessary to “pull their chestnuts out of the fire.”
Is this it? I don’t think so.
Swamplaw Yankee
September 11, 2025 at 1:28 am
Physical evidence, consultations, have a Genocide criminal shake your hand, it goes on from those supporting the “Dolus Specialis” Criminal Tsarling Putin.
Phillips O’Brien is enough of an authority for most peer readers. The Genocide tsarling Puti has made the move on NATO. Please argue with O’Brien.
That parts of the WEST want to slip back to 1939 seems evident. 1939 USA was a Yellow Cowards Paradise, with Yankee Cowards spewing Neutrality fantasies, cuddling with amigos from the south, while viciously pushing next door teenagers, Canadian and Newfoundland lads + lasses out to Africa to die and be maimed for the Yellow Yankee Cowards delight.
Dr. Motyl slowly proceeds disambiguating casual order due to his Quantum physic reality. The reader knows that he is trapped inside a measurement problem as virtually all readers have a measurement problem. What is the or a reality of Ukraine, they ponder? Only Dr. Motyl offers them a theorum of that reality. Motyl is the agent that is their qualified teacher of the theory of Ukraine. Again do read Motyl’s publications, please.
It is the agent’s understanding of the world that they exist within, that allows Motyl to lead the reader thru the Ukraine reality miasma, comparable to Quantum physics. The specific aspect here is Qbism: I speculate the closest interpretation useful to the understanding of the “attack” on POLAND.
That most of us are stuck in the “Heisenberg uncertainly principle” is evident. We make a cognitive “bet” on the “Pool of Money” without knowing what the skilled agent, MOTYL, knows about being an agent! Can certain properties exist, how do we know they can not exist?
Is the ethnic orc Putin in a continuity of persecution, Genocide, of Ukrainians and, as we repeatedly claim, ancient Genocide perpetrated on Ukrainians for the last 1000 years? Are Ukrainians Putin’s Christian version of the muslim Hazara: to be exterminated as a religious condition of being a “NORMAL” russkie ethnic.
Can the average Yankee Doodle Dandy process that the PRC CCP Xi regime has this Genocide line for Ukrainians under close cash lubrication. Like quantum physics theory can the Yankee think of 2 distant events as the same.
The Xi regime funds the extermination of Ukrainians in 2025 for the same reality as the 1932-33 russkie extermination of 20,000,000 Ukrainians ( the HOLODOMOR) .
That the MAGA POTUS Trumpkins and his brain trust elite refuse to measure the “Dolus Specialis” Genocidal intent from the russkie ethnics makes the MAGA elite “entangled” in the same manner as Quantum physics works.
The 2014 POTUS Obama Democrat Cabal also is inside the same understanding of this Genocide Guilt world they so happily, voluntarily entered inside of. History is what OBAMA re-started in 2014 when his Democrat Cabal betrayed the WEST and Ukraine to his marxist blood brothers in Moscow. -30-
Bankotsu
September 11, 2025 at 2:35 am
U.S. must declare war on Russia for the attack on Poland.
Jarlmudry
September 11, 2025 at 3:46 pm
No need to declare war on Russia, Bankotsu, but it is time to go beyond denouncing Russia’s reckless behaviour and act. First, follow through on the threats to punish Russia by expanding sanctions, and follow with the confiscation of the $330 billion of Russian assets in Brussels. And if that doesn’t work, block the Danish straits to Russian oil tankers and watch the Russian economy collapse overnight. 40% of Russian oil exports pass through these straits.