American newspapers argued Moscow leveraged what they called US President Donald Trump’s weakness and probed NATO cohesion after Russian drones repeatedly violated Polish airspace overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday.
They warned that showing weakness is an invitation to aggression.
The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal said Russian strikes on Ukraine intensified after Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15.
The papers said Moscow steered Washington away from tightening sanctions and Putin concluded he could escalate.
The WSJ recalled that shortly after the meeting, Russia launched about 800 drones and missiles toward Ukraine, killing civilians, including a mother and child.
Assessing the Poland incident, the WSJ also called it a direct threat to the United States because some 10,000 US troops are stationed in Poland, adding that debris scattered across Poland underscored the adage that weakness is an invitation to aggression.
CNN said Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s figure of 19 objects crossing into Poland makes it hard to blame interference or another actor and highlighted Russia’s preference for operating in a “gray zone,” allowing escalation while denying premeditation.
In the New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof urged the West to respond to deter future attacks, even amid nuclear escalation risks.
He argued for wider intelligence access and more weapons, so Ukraine can strike deep inside Russia, financing supplies with frozen Russian assets in Europe.
He also said EU and NATO officials should discuss coordinated airspace defense, including over Ukraine.
The Guardian described a serious, deliberate provocation aimed at sowing fear and political division and a major test of NATO’s resolve.
It noted similar incidents since Russia’s 2022 invasion but said none matched this scale.
While Russia had been cautious toward NATO for over three and a half years, the paper wrote, the latest events mark a sharp escalation.
It said the Trump-Putin meeting brought only about 10 days of relative calm before Russia’s actions intensified.
The Telegraph cited former NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu as saying that if Russia sought to test NATO, the alliance was ready: it coordinated military action against drones over Poland and convened an urgent Article 4 meeting.
Such lessons, the paper said, could aid Putin as he faces a potentially frozen war and possible European peacekeepers in Ukraine.
It also quoted retired Australian general Mick Ryan, who called the episode "probing" rather than "a careless navigation error," linked to scenarios in which NATO might set up bases in eastern Poland to support a future presence in Ukraine.
The Times said the response exposed gaps in Europe’s defenses driven by limited resources, aging radars and shifting warfare, pointing to NATO’s long-running air-defense shortfalls on the alliance’s eastern flank.
Ground-based radar limits have repeatedly failed to detect low-flying Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian drones over the past year, it added.
Poland said defensive procedures were activated as Polish and allied radars tracked more than a dozen objects; those posing a threat were neutralized. Security services are searching for debris, and the interior ministry said remains of 16 drones have been found to date.
(jh/gs)
Source: PAP