A troubled Warsaw sought support from the West but could not find widespread sympathy: “Mourir pour Dantzig?” asked […] a newspaper article in early May [1939] —should we die for Danzig, this distant city on the far side of the continent?
—Peter Oliver Loew, Gdańsk, Portrait of a City
So I beg you, no more of those lamentations.
—Czeslaw Milosz
Warsaw, September 2025
On the morning of September 10, 2025, Poland awoke to the news that overnight nearly twenty drones had violated Polish airspace. These incursions were concurrent with a sustained attack on Ukraine of over 400 drones. The majority of the Polish incidents occurred along the country’s eastern border near Lublin. Other drones, however, penetrated more than 150 miles to central Poland, reaching Nowe Miasto nad Pilicą[1]—the location of a Territorial Defense Force unit—as well as Oleśno, in the direction of Gdańsk, the country’s strategic port. If drone incursions in Europe since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine have been by and large tacitly categorized as “accidents,”[2] regarding the September 9–10 Polish incidents this would not be the case. Rather a “preponderance of evidence,” including drone type, territorial depth of incursion, and the drones’ prolonged presence in Poland’s airspace all pointed to intentionality.[3] Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s tersely worded morning press conference underscored the gravity of the situation, and two days later he stated—contrary to official Russian and American statements—that the Polish government was well aware that the incursions were not “a mistake . . . and we know it.”[4]
Given the rising tensions in Europe—and the Poles’ historical memory of the month of September—few in Warsaw thought the overnight incursions were good news. Poland shares a 260-mile-long eastern border with Belarus and another 130-mile border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to the country’s northeast. Along with Ukraine and the Baltic nations, Poland occupies a vulnerable geopolitical position with regard to the Russian Federation. A member of NATO since 1999 and the EU since 2004, since the start of the full-scale war Poland has found itself subject to a “spectrum of provocations” including drone incursions, disinformation campaigns, sabotage, and the ongoing instrumentalization of refugees from Belarusian territory forced across its borders.[5],[6] Further, Poland’s eastern cities, such as Rzeszów and Lublin, were transit hubs for the nearly six million Ukrainian war refugees fleeing West.[7] Despite this, however, until September 2025, there has been the hope that the Russian-Ukrainian war could be contained, and that Poland, as well as other Western nations, would not be drawn into its vortex.
For this reason, the September Polish drone incursions—as well as incidents that would occur throughout eastern and western Europe over the following weeks in Estonia, Romania, Denmark, Norway, France, Germany, Lithuania, and Finland—sent a tremor through the region. Among these events, the September 19 violation of Estonian airspace by three MiG-31 Russian fighter jets, along with the September 22–28 Denmark drone incursions that repeatedly shut down airports across the country, pointed to a testing of Western responses through hybrid threats and escalation.[8]All these events, it seemed, were intended to remain in the gray zone of “provocation.” In the case of the September Polish incursions, NATO’s response was swift and unequivocal: its Quick Reaction Alert system went into effect; Polish F-16 fighter jets, Dutch F-35s, an Italian AWACS,[9] and other NATO forces were scrambled; the threats were monitored and, where necessary, neutralized. During the episode, up to four of the nineteen drones in Poland were shot down, representing NATO’s first direct engagement with Russia since the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion.
A Question of War
In Warsaw during the days that followed the incursions, the question of European security and whether the West possessed the appropriate technological means to respond to such hybrid threats—and in sufficient quantities—became a pressing topic of debate. If during the first decades after 1989 there had reigned the sentiment that “a great war” in Europe was no longer possible, the onset of the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian war shattered this illusion. Over the past three and a half years this reality has only grown, as Dr. Katarzyna Pisarska, Chair of the 2025 Warsaw Security Forum, put it later in September: “We know very well that the holiday from history is over. That the peace dividend has been spent . . . it cannot be more clear that Russian aggression is not a peripheral conflict . . . this has forced us to look at a brutal truth that war is at our doorsteps.”[10] Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s even more direct assessment at the same Forum underscored the complexity of twenty-first century hybrid warfare: “What is the real threat in the twenty-first century? How do we defend western civilization against this threat? It is war […] and this is war. We didn’t want it . . . [it is] a strange new type of war.” In the aftermath of the incursions, Tusk’s evocation of “war”—even if a “new type of war”—was a forceful warning. Tusk’s comments stressed the epochal shift that the war in Ukraine has hastened: “It seemed that not only my generation, but also the generation of my children and grandchildren, would enjoy peace… But let’s not live in an illusion. Peace is not given once and for always. In this part of the world, peace is not a certainty. Quite the contrary.”[11] While Tusk’s stark assessment that an already-present hybrid war was underway in Europe was not unanimously adopted by all those present at the Forum, in Warsaw there was a shared sentiment that a threshold had been crossed.[12]
Drones and Hybrid Provocations
After the September incursions, the Polish military identified fallen drone debris on its territory. Specialists determined the category of aircraft employed to be the Russian Geran-2 (Gerbera) type military drone—an inexpensive, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at times referred to as a “decoy drone” used for reconnaissance or in swarms to overwhelm air defense systems. This type of drone is equipped with surveillance technology and is the unarmed variant of the Iranian Shahed. It is directed by a pre-programmed satellite navigation system and powered by a small two-stroke gasoline engine or electric motor, which, in the case of the September incursions, allowed drones to travel the substantial distance from Belarus to central Poland, and remain over the country’s territory at times for seven hours.[13]
The recovered drone debris also allowed specialists to establish the deliberate nature of the incidents. It is known that Russian drones, when used for strikes on Ukraine, are launched in “drone packages.” These packages include armed, reconnaissance, as well as decoy drones for distracting local air defense. If, as Russia initially claimed, the September 9–10 incursions had been the result of a technical malfunction during that night’s attack on Ukraine—for instance, interference by anti-UAV radar—a range of debris from different drone types would have been found on Polish territory. Instead, according to current information, the recovered drones were of the same category: Geran-2 type reconnaissance drones.[14] Further, the penetration of drones 150 miles into Poland—a mere eighty miles from Warsaw—and to Olesno, near Gdańsk, and the prolonged loitering of certain drones would have required intentionality. Finally, the geolocation of drone sightings—as would increasingly be the case in the following weeks across Europe—correlated with Poland’s sensitive military or infrastructure sites, for example its eastern airport of Rzeszów, a key arms supply hub for Ukraine (where one of the September drones was neutralized by NATO) as well as the Territorial Defense Force unit near Łódź.
Further, overnight on September 9–10, NASK—Poland’s national cybersecurity research institute—sounded the alarm of a surge in drone-related disinformation campaigns. The Polish government issued a warning on September 10 outlining the range of propaganda points disseminated.[15] According to NASK, the primary focus was to cast doubt about the drones’ origins, placing responsibility instead on Ukraine. This disinformation narrative implied that the incursions were a ploy by Ukraine to draw Poland into the war with Russia. Another variant was that the attack was actually coordinated between Kyiv and Warsaw; another asserted it was Kyiv working with the UK and Washington. Still another narrative asserted that the drone incursions did not take place at all. Conversely, certain disinformation lines suggested that Russian drones did violate Polish airspace, but this proved that NATO was unable to effectively respond. One of the most dangerous NATO-related variants strove to “undermine trust in NATO and present it as an internally divided and passive structure” as well as portraying Russia “as a force capable of testing its limits without consequences.” Among all the disinformation, this last assertion gave one pause.
For indeed, the exhibitionism of the next European incursions in Denmark on September 22–28 was even more pronounced: airports, infrastructure and militarily sensitive locations were repeatedly targeted. Drones were observed over the country’s Kastrup (Copenhagen), Esbjerg, and Sønderborg airports. Danish military sites included Aalborg airport, the military air base for the Royal Danish Air Force; Skrydstrup Air Base, the main base for Danish F-16 and F-35 jets; and the Jutland Dragoon Regiment, among other locations.[16],[17] The Danish incursions occurred just prior to the European Summit in Copenhagen on October 2, 2025. These incidents, still under official investigation, are posited to have been launched from the Russian shadow fleet in shipping lanes arriving from the Baltic Sea.[18] Over Copenhagen reconnaissance drones “arrived from different directions” and “turned their lights off and on, before disappearing several hours later,” stated Senior Danish Police Inspector Jens Jespersen. Speaking after the event, he stressed it was believed that the maneuvers observed were intended to display that the drones were being controlled by a “capable operator” who also had the “will and the tools to show off this way.”[19]
Not surprisingly, Russia’s official response to the Polish September drone incursions was noncommittal and dismissive. By early October, however, the escalation of European drone incidents, and their timing—in Denmark before the European Summit and in Poland just prior to the 2025 Russia-Belarus joint military exercises (ZAPAD, “West”)—reinforced the impression that Russia was testing Europe and that security dangers to the international community were real and concrete. Europe took this seriously. In response to the September events, Poland invoked NATO’s Article 4,[20] which sets in motion a consultation process, after which the North Atlantic Council met on September 10[21] and the UN Security Council convened an emergency session in New York on September 12.[22] Article 4 was similarly invoked following the September 19 violation of Estonian airspace by three MiG-31 Russian fighter jets, and an assessment of current risks was carried out.[23] Operation Eastern Sentry, an intensification of NATO’s policing of its eastern flank—akin to Baltic Sentry established in January 2025—was also activated. At the September 12 UN Security Council meeting, a joint statement by forty-eight countries and the EU Delegation was issued denouncing the Polish incursions.[24] On September 10 NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte affirmed the Allies’ solidarity with Poland and denounced “Russia’s reckless behavior.”[25] In the face of the September events, it appeared there was indeed a united Europe.[26]
Nevertheless, in Warsaw, discussions among Poles continued to raise questions concerning Poland’s past and future safety. Above all, would the strength of NATO endure a hybrid attack aimed at fragmenting the North Atlantic Alliance—and if not, who could be counted on to come to Poland’s aid? Such concerns, however, are shared not only by the general public. Earlier in 2025 a number of significant bilateral agreements were initiated to reinforce Poland’s security: in January 2025 preparations for a new defense and security agreement between Poland and the UK were launched, to be finalized by the end of the year.[27] And on May 9, 2025, in Nancy, France—on the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration[28]—Poland signed the Treaty of Nancy. This “Treaty on Enhanced Cooperation and Friendship” provides mutual security guarantees in the event of an attack on one of the two countries.[29] Since 1989 in Europe, such a treaty has existed only between France and Germany.
These agreements are fundamental to a new era of security for Europe. But, as Emmanuel Macron evoked in his May 9 speech in Nancy, the treaty between France and Poland is also a reminder of Europe’s complex, painful history. According to Macron, the Treaty of Nancy—beyond its future-looking partnership—is also intended to “close a dark [page of history] that was opened in the 1930s” when, in the face of the advance of Nazism, France did not intervene as promised, but rather hoped war with Germany would be contained within Poland’s borders—and when, after the war’s end, “in 1947, we let the Iron Curtain fall.”[30]
Poland’s Septembers
As Macron underscored, questions of mutual security cannot be raised without returning to Poland’s situation on the eve of the Second World War—as such chapters have a direct bearing upon the present. For it was precisely during the months leading up to Germany’s September 1, 1939, attack on Poland that the strength of the country’s military alliances became a grave matter of concern. Poland had only regained its sovereignty twenty years earlier in 1918, after the defeat of the Central Powers and the collapse of the Russian Empire ended the First World War. Before this, Poland had experienced 123 years of occupation after its third partitioning in 1795 by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. During this period, it had ceased to exist as a state. As WWII approached, Poland was keenly aware of the implications of another loss of statehood and occupation. Following Germany’s March 1938 annexation of Austria, the failure of the Munich Agreement, and the March 1939 occupation of what remained of Czechoslovakia, Poland was forced to face that a wider European war was imminent.
In 1939, Poland’s security was highly dependent on Allied assistance: on May 19, 1939, France and Poland signed the Kasprzycki–Gamelin Convention (the French-Polish military convention), which committed France to launching an offensive against Germany “with the bulk of its forces” in the case of an attack. On August 25, 1939, Britain entered into the Agreement of Mutual Assistance Between the United Kingdom and Poland that promised, in the case of war, “all the support and assistance in its power.”[31] However, the August 23, 1939, signing between Germany and Russia of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact had already concretized Polish, as well as Allied, fears. On September 1 Nazi Germany began its campaign against Poland, submitting the country to intensive artillery and aerial bombing. On September 3 Britain and France, as promised, declared war on Germany. But as is tragically known, this did not result in aid to Poland.
Without support from the British air force or France’s ground troops, Poland fought the militarily superior German army on three fronts. Then, on September 17, 1939, the USSR began the second invasion, entering eastern Poland and advancing towards the pre-determined border established in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact’s secret protocol. This resulted in the Soviet occupation of the country’s eastern territories. The September 1939 German-Soviet partitioning of Poland, along with the USSR’s gradual annexation of the Baltic states, redefined the magnitude of the war in Europe. This resulted, as Poland had feared, in its Allies turning to questions of their own security. Nevertheless, the belief tragically persisted—even until Poland’s capitulation on September 28—that British and French Allied troops were on their way—and would soon alleviate Poland’s suffering.[32] These events would foreshadow the country’s treatment by Western allies at the conferences at Tehran and Yalta, from which Poland was excluded as a negotiator, even though Poland’s wartime losses totaled over five million—including over three million Jewish citizens—one-fifth of its prewar population. Then, as Macron evoked this May in Nancy, in 1947—as the USSR was installing puppet governments across Central Europe during the immediate afterwar period—the Allies “let the Iron Curtain fall.” Poland would remain in the Soviet sphere of influence as a satellite for over forty years.
History and the Future
History in Poland is both a burden and an important source of insight into the possibilities of renewal after totalitarianism. Since Poland’s regained sovereignty in 1989, an immense scholarly undertaking has sought to address the country’s traumatic experiences of WWII and the Soviet occupation. With this work there has been the hope that—once completed—certain chapters of the past might be put to rest. As a country with a long historical memory of constitutional governance and nationhood, Poland—despite domestic political disputes—has remained Western-oriented and is a major player in the enlarged EU. But questions raised by Russia’s revanchism have the effect that memories of the past risk becoming flashpoints of continuity with the present. Throughout, Poland has attempted to come to terms with its multilayered past by inaugurating a number of important institutions such as the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the Museum of the Second World War, and Warsaw’s Katyń Museum. The last is a memorial to the nearly 22,000 members of the Polish officer corps, as well as Polish military and government officials, Polish army soldiers, and civilians—all citizens of the Second Polish Republic—who were arrested by the Soviets following the September 1939 campaign and later executed.[33] The execution deprived Poland of critical members of its military and civil leadership. It was not until 1990 that Gorbachev took the first steps towards the USSR’s acceptance of responsibility for the Katyń case.[34]
Approaching the Museum on a morning in early autumn, one is struck by the memorial’s stark architecture, which has been conceived as a space of remembrance. Newly designed in 2015, the walkway to the museum’s entrance passes through a wooded grove symbolizing the Katyń forest where the officers were assassinated in 1940 on the direct orders of Stalin. It is also a reminder of other killing sites where victims were buried in mass graves.[35] At once an exhibition, archive, and research center, the museum also displays objects donated by the victim’s families on the walls of its administrative offices. As a pedagogic tool, a model of one of the three Soviet camps where prisoners were held can examined by schoolchildren. Such exhibits are intended to foster memory and clarify responsibility for the crime, which are the only conditions that can make way for closure. The acceleration of recent events, however, has regretfully reopened the archives of the past. As Katyń Museum curator Dr. Bartłomiej Bydoń remarked following the September drone incursions: “Regarding Russia, we know who we are dealing with—we know the history of Imperial Russia, we know the history of Soviet Russia, the Russian Federation, and now—Putin’s Russia.” Bydoń is pragmatic about Russian threats as well as the continuity of Polish memory: “In Poland, we have an acute memory of the partitions. We were under occupation for many years; after WWI our independence lasted only for the brief interwar period. After the Second World War there was another occupation by Russians and Polish communists. We know all this intimately—but in Europe, there are those who see Russian imperialism as something important—for business.”
Bydoń’s dryly ironic emphasis on the word “business”—echoing the “transactional style” in foreign policy favored by the current US administration and some European countries—underscores the growing risks in the present. “Many countries don’t see history recurring, just as the world failed to notice Russian operations in Europe for years. If you don’t see the continuity of the war in Ukraine, Russian propaganda, provocations, and violence, you are blind. One must remember what the communists did to countries in the Soviet sphere of interest. This is a history lesson that many have failed to learn. On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union also did not declare war, but rather, when invading Poland, proclaimed this was to protect the lives and property of the populations of western Ukraine and western Belarus. On February 24, 2022, Russian troops engaged in military operations under the pretext of ‘helping to repel aggression,’ allegedly committed by Ukraine against the ‘states’ of the ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ and the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic.’[36] The analogy is clear.”[37] And now, it is Poland’s eastern borderlands—such as the Lublin region—that are geographically vulnerable.
Lublin: October 2025
Poland’s largest city on its southeastern flank, Lublin is located a little over 100 miles from the Ukrainian border. A bit further east is Rzeszów and the border crossing of Przemyśl, through which the millions of Ukrainian refugees transited into Poland in 2022. This is a borderland that has succumbed to occupation—and resisted it. In its Old Town, Lublin’s role in Poland’s two-hundred-year federation with Lithuania through the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) is honored as a fundamental part of the two countries’ collective past. Again, this is not mere history: at the time, the Union of Lublin afforded the two nations protection against their powerful eastern neighbor, Russia, until the eighteenth-century partitions. Badly damaged during WWII, the former royal city of Lublin then suffered the fate of many of Poland’s cities during the Soviet period, and even now the old town’s renovated renaissance facades are interspersed with damaged masonry. The overlapping of present and past—so characteristic of Poland—is also present in the city’s manner of highlighting its historic union with Lithuania. On Lublin’s Krakowskie Przedmieście Street it is possible to glimpse present-day Vilnius in real time through the Vilnius–Lublin Portal—a large, round, two-way webcam connecting the royal cities—and wave.
The Baltic Risk
A few streets away from the city center, the Institute for Central Europe (IEŚ) is housed in a small, renovated building. The IEŚ is a thinktank that was established in 2018 and operates under the aegis of Poland’s Prime Minister. On IEŚ’s second floor, small honeycombs of offices are filled with bookshelves containing publications on Baltic security, international policy, energy infrastructure, and historical memory, among other subjects. Dr. Damian Szacawa, an Assistant Professor of International Political Relations at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, and head of the Baltic Team at IEŚ, has been tracking drone incursions and other hybrid events in the course of his research. As a Baltic specialist, he begins by evoking recent Baltic Sea provocations, such as the severing of underwater pipelines and communication cables.[38] Underreported in the international news, the vulnerability of the Baltics and the Baltic Sea are key issues in European security. On July 1, 2025, Poland assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), which provides strategic direction in the region.
By the time we speak during the first week of October, the spectrum of incidents across Eastern and Western Europe has increased exponentially. Regarding the September Polish drone incursions, we review the available data: that most of the drones flew in directly from Belarus; that they were all sent in the same direction; that they were equipped with reconnaissance monitor points; that they had combustion engines and batteries to travel long distances; and that none were carrying explosive warheads. Szacawa warns that the Russian incursions may have, effectively, fulfilled a range of Russian objectives. First, they facilitated the collection of surveillance information. As the incursions were intended to create an atmosphere of uncertainty, they can also be understood as a Psychological Operation. Above all, they were a test of NATO’s reactivity and its material capacity for response. It is also obvious that, over the last three years, Russia has used its full-scale war in Ukraine as a weapons laboratory, with drones representing a fundamental technological shift. In response, NATO’s Operation Eastern Sentry was immediately launched in a bid to strengthen air defense and policing of Poland’s eastern borders—including the Lublin region—and also to develop counter-drone sensors and anti-drone technology.[39]
After a pause—as Prime Minister Tusk had evoked at the Warsaw Forum—Szacawa also expresses his concerns about the new nature of “war.” He stresses that Poland is not at war, but when one looks at the range of provocations—sabotage, cyber incidents, jamming in the Baltic Sea, to name just a few—the situation becomes complicated. Where exactly does the gray zone end and war begin? Szacawa reminds us that Russia still has not made any official declaration of war against Ukraine. Part of the problem, he suggests, is attempting to use western values to understand Russia. That the West was “not listening well enough to what Russia was saying”—and it “wasn’t taken at its word about its imperialist projects.” Szacawa underscores that Putin, in his famous “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” essay of summer 2021, made his objectives and rationale clear prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion. But, in September 2025, such a declaration may not, this time, be on offer. This brings to mind what the poet Ingeborg Bachman once wrote, “war is no longer declared, only continued.” For this reason, Szacawa says it is difficult to interpret the exact meaning of what we are witnessing—is this the start of a serious escalation, and if so, will there be any other advance warning? Or rather, is there a risk that we will just “slide into hybrid war” where borders, actors, and objectives all exist in a gray zone?
In the context of hybrid warfare—while the September incursions in eastern Poland are a reflection of serious developments—other flash points in the region are currently considered to be of even more urgent concern. Areas such as the Suwałki Gap or certain Baltic border areas with Russia are estimated to be particularly at risk. The Suwałki Gap is a forty-mile-long stretch of land that separates Poland from Lithuania and is bracketed on either side by Kaliningrad and Belarus. It is the principal land route access for NATO between Poland and the Baltics. Hybrid diversions—such as took place in September—could be used there to complicate NATO’s reactive capacity. But given the severity of recent developments in the Baltic Sea area, attention is now being especially focused on the Baltic states themselves, where sea blockades, drones, and other provocations could create an opening for destabilization or border incursions.[40] While such concerns are dismissed by Russia, later in October the three Baltic states—Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—will announce they are establishing contingency operations for mass evacuations in the case of a consequential Russian military buildup or attack.
During our discussion, the afternoon light fades over Lublin. While speaking, Szacawa expresses no personal fear—if anything, his tone reflects a sober reckoning that the world has entered a new era and must now quickly prepare or suffer the consequences. This means for Europe assuring that its security alliances are firm and cannot be undermined by divisive tactics. For Poland’s bitter memory of when, at the start of WWII, its Western allies refused to “die for Danzig” can never be forgotten. Equally important to reflect upon is whether, if the West had rapidly confronted Nazi Germany, whether it could have staved off the conflagration that later engulfed the world. Finally, for Szacawa, as with many Poles, the implications of the recent drone incursions are not merely abstract—but rather, they have personal consequences. Szacawa has friends who live close to the Polish border with Ukraine, with one of the September 9–10 drones landing less than fifteen miles away from where they live, bringing the autumn’s drone incidents very close to home.[41]
Postscript
Leaving Lublin’s Institute for Central Europe, and heading back down Krakowskie Przedmieście Street—where, at least for now, you can still wave peacefully to Vilnius, Lithuania—I fight off a surge of melancholy. Thirty-five years—the period since 1989—is terribly short in historical terms. It is as if this period has passed—with its great initial surge of liberating hope—in a single moment. Fewer people now seem to recall when the idea of another European war seemed extremely far off—an impossibility. Or even when Russia, during its brief, chaotic democratic moment in the mid-1990s, seemed as if it might be on the verge of change—and might finally break out of the historical cage of autocracy.
Instead, in Lublin, near the Ukrainian border, where the century’s latest generation of weapons are being tested on Ukraine, one fears that drone swarms may be—if they are not already—analogous to the twentieth century’s technological “breakthrough” in warfare, the blitzkrieg. That, as witnessed daily in tragic attacks on Ukraine, if unchecked autocratic power is behind “the drone revolution,” this may have the capacity to draw civilization down into its vortex. For while technology “advances,” we know the tragic cost to human flesh and blood remains the same. During these autumn weeks, stalled in its brutal, illegal war in Ukraine, Russia, newly emboldened, appeared to be taunting Europe, attempting to disrupt alliances and democracies, sow conflict, and incite civilizational chaos. In September 2025 Europe is not “at war” with Russia: “not even a hybrid war.” Yet what is clear is that we have moved that much closer to the edge of something dangerous—for which we do not yet have a name.
[1] TVP Warszawa, “Dron znaleziony na Mazowszu. Trwają działania prokuratury” [Drone found in Mazowsze. Prosecutor’s office actions underway], December 30, 2024.
[2] Verstka has estimated that there have been up to six previous drone incursions into Polish airspace since the start of the full-scale invasion, and seven drones and one missile have fallen on Polish territory. See: Institute for the Study of War, “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 10, 2025,” September 10, 2025.
[3] The Guardian, “Russian drone incursion ‘tactically stupid and counterproductive’, says Polish minister”, October 15, 2025.
[4] Donald Tusk (via X), @donaldtusk: “We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it.” September 12, 2025.
[5] Among other acts of sabotage, Poland has accused Russia of the May 2024 arson attack on Warsaw’s Marywilska shopping center. See: BBC News, “Poland accuses Russia of arson over 2024 shopping centre fire”, May 12, 2025. Further threats of sabotage continued throughout October 2025.
[6] Central European Journal of Politics (CEJOP), “Security Cooperation in the EU’s Neighborhood: The Case of the Visegrad Group”, 2022.
[7] Podgórska, K., “Support for Ukrainian refugees after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, European Societies, Vol. 26, No. 2, 2024.
[8] Security Council Report, “Briefing on Incursion of Russian Aircraft into Estonian Airspace”, September 21, 2025.
[9] Airborne Warning and Control System.
[10] Dr. Katarzyna Pisarska, “Warsaw Security Forum, Opening Session, September 29, 2025.
[11] Prime Minister Donald Tusk, “Warsaw Security Forum, Opening Session, September 29, 2025.
[12] Conversation with Liam Nolan, Warsaw, October 1, 2025.
[13] Interview with Dr. Damian Szacawa, Institute of Central and Eastern Europe, October 3, 2025.
[14] Robert Hamilton, “NATO’s air defense dilemma”, War on the Rocks, October 2, 2025.
[15] Ministry of Digitalization of Poland, “Uwaga na dezinformację związaną z naruszeniem polskiej przestrzeni powietrznej przez drony” [Beware of disinformation related to Russian drones violating Polish airspace], September 10, 2025.
[16] Danish Defence Command, “Regarding drones over Denmark”, September 27, 2025.
[17] Incursions in France over the Mourmelon-le-Grand military base and in Germany over critical infrastructure and military facilities followed similar patterns. See: Elsa Fournier, “Marne : des drones survolent la base militaire de Mourmelon-le-Grand” [Marne: Drones fly over the Mourmelon-le-Grand Military Base]. Le Média De La Vie Locale, September 25, 2025, and Politico Europe, “Sabine Sütterlin-Waack: drone buzz critical infrastructure Germany”, October 1, 2025.
[18] The Guardian, “French military detain two after boarding Russia-linked oil tanker suspected of launching drones”, October 1, 2025.
[19] TVP World, “Drone incursion at Danish airport was attack on country’s infrastructure, says PM”, September 2025.
[20] Chancellery of the Prime Minister, “Poland Moves to Invoke NATO Article 4 After Airspace Violation”, September 9, 2025.
[21] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Statement by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on the violation of Polish airspace by Russian drones”, September 10, 2025.
[22] Security Council Report, “Emergency Briefing on Drone Incursion into Poland”, September 12, 2025.
[23] North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Statement by the North Atlantic Council on recent airspace violations by Russia”, September 23, 2025.
[24] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, “Joint statement by 48 countries and the EU Delegation ahead of an emergency Security Council Meeting”, September 12, 2025.
[25] Op. cit. NATO, “Statement by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on the violation of Polish airspace by Russian drones”, September 10, 2025.
[26] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, “UN Security Council emergency session at Poland’s request”, September 12, 2025.
[27] UK Government (Gov.UK), “UK and Poland to launch new defence and security treaty in Warsaw”, January 16, 2025.
[28] On May 9, 1950, French foreign minister Robert Schuman announced the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. This was the first in a series of steps culminating in today’s European Union. See: European Union, Schuman Declaration May 1950.
[29] See: Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland, “Poland and France sign historic security and cooperation treaty in Nancy” and Notes from Poland, “Poland and France sign groundbreaking treaty including mutual security guarantees”.
[30] Élysée Palace, “Signing of the Franco-Polish Friendship Treaty in Nancy”, May 9, 2025.
[31] For a detailed account of diplomatic negotiations between Poland and its allies prior to WWII see: Roger Moorhouse, Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2020) and Yale Law School, Avalon Project, “The Franco-Polish Agreement of May 19, 1939”.
[32] Fighting continued until October 6.
[33] The nearly 22,000 victims included officers of the Polish Army, State Police, Silesian Province Police, Border Guards, Border Protection Corps, prison guards, as well as civilians—political activists, state and local government officials, and others designated by the Soviets as “enemies of Soviet authority.”
[34] For an overview of the diplomatic steps taken regarding the acknowledgement of the Katyń Massacre, see Anna M. Cienciala, Natalia S. Lebedeva, and Wojciech Materski (eds), Katyń: A Crime Without Punishment, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007 and The Guardian, “Russian Parliament Admits Stalin Ordered Katyn Massacre”, November 26, 2010.
[35] After their arrest, the officers were principally held in three special prisoner of war camps: Ostashkov, Kozelsk, and Starobelsk. Other individuals, primarily political prisoners, were held in jails in western Ukraine and western Belarus. In Spring 1940, they were executed and buried in mass graves in the Katyń forest, as well as at Mednoye, Kharkiv and other locations. See: Cienciala, Katyń: A Crime Without Punishment (2007).
[36] United Nations Security Council, Letter dated 24 February 2022 from the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, February 24, 2022.
[37] Interview with Dr. Bartłomiej Bydoń, October 2, 2025, Katyń Museum, Warsaw.
[38] International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), “The Baltic Sea in Peace and War”, October 24, 2025.
[39] Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), “Eastern Sentry to enhance NATO’s presence along its eastern flank”, September 12, 2025.
[40] Interview with Dr. Marek Madej, Warsaw University, October 2, 2025.
[41] Interview with Dr. Damian Szacawa, ICE, Lublin, October 4, 2025.
The author would like to thank Dr. Bartłomiej Bydoń, Dr. Marek Madej and Dr. Damian Szacawa for their assistance with this essay.
Ellen Hinsey is the international correspondent for New England Review. She is the author of nine books of poetry, essays, dialogue, and translation. Her most recent books include Anatomy of the Eclipse (Arrowsmith Press, 2026), The Invisible Fugue (Wildhouse Poetry, 2024) and The Illegal Age (ARC Publications, 2018), which explores the rise of authoritarianism. Hinsey’s essays are collected in Mastering the Past: Reports from Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe (2017). Hinsey’s other poetry collections include Update on the Descent, The White Fire of Time, and Cities of Memory (Yale University Series Award). Magnetic North, Hinsey’s book-length dialogue with Tomas Venclova on totalitarianism and dissidence was a finalist for Lithuania’s book of the year. Her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Irish Times, Poetry, and New England Review. A former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, she has most recently been a visiting professor at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany.