Click to view full size

WHY THIS MAT­TERS: Pol­ish air­space has been vi­o­lat­ed sev­er­al times since Rus­sia’s full-scale in­va­sion of Ukraine in 2022, but there has been noth­ing on the scale of Wednes­day’s vi­o­la­tions in Poland or in any oth­er NA­TO coun­try.

Mul­ti­ple Russ­ian drones crossed in­to Poland in what Eu­ro­pean of­fi­cials de­scribed Wednes­day as an de­lib­er­ate provo­ca­tion, caus­ing NA­TO to send fight­er jets to shoot them down. A NA­TO spokesman said it was the first time the al­liance con­front­ed a po­ten­tial threat in its air­space.

The in­cur­sion, which oc­curred dur­ing a wave of strikes by the Krem­lin on Ukraine, and the NA­TO re­sponse swift­ly raised fears that the war could spill over — a fear that has been grow­ing in Eu­rope as Rus­sia steps up its at­tacks and peace ef­forts go nowhere.