In the early hours of Sept. 10, more than 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace. NATO jets were scrambled to bring them down. About a week later, Russian fighter jets entered Estonian airspace and stayed for around 12 minutes. There have been other similar recent incidents. European governments are alarmed. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the war has been mostly confined to the east of the long land border that Poland — and therefore the European Union and NATO — shares with Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. (The Ukrainian artist Zhenya Oliinyk explored the peculiar magic of that border in an illustrated Opinion guest essay earlier this year.) But is that starting to change? Is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, prodding at Europe and NATO’s defenses? Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, argues in a guest essay today that the drones that violated Polish airspace “did not drift into a NATO country by mistake,” and that a new approach to dealing with Putin is needed. This and other recent events, he writes, are “yet more proof that the Kremlin is not interested in peace but in escalation.” “If you are surprised by that,” he writes, “you have not been paying attention.” Here’s what we’re focusing on today:
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