Europe Is Answering Putin’s Challenge

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1. Shane Harris: “Donald Trump has derided NATO as an obsolete bunch of freeloaders for so long, it can be easy to forget that the transatlantic alliance remains the most powerful combined military force on Earth. And right now, it’s really acting like it.

   “Last month, Russian drones violated the airspace of several NATO member countries, including Poland and Denmark; 10 days later, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace, staying there for 12 minutes. Such Russian air incursions are not new, but these were more aggressive and lasted longer than others in recent memory. Coming as negotiations over a possible settlement of the war in Ukraine were at a standstill, they looked like an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to intimidate and divide the alliance.

   “But he may have misjudged.

   “‘I would say that it backfired on him,’ Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told me when we met at his office in Tallinn last week. He described how advanced F-35 jets, flown by the Italian air force, had intercepted the aged MiGs over Estonia’s Vaindloo Island, about 16 miles off the mainland. Earlier, Polish and other NATO militaries had scrambled jets and shot down up to four of the nearly two dozen Russian drones that threatened the country. (The low kill ratio suggests that Poland needs better, or at least more efficient, air defenses, but the incursion did not go unanswered.) And in response to Russia’s harassment, NATO established a more enhanced and coordinated defense of its eastern flank, including counter-drone measures, called Eastern Sentry.

   “‘The violation of Poland’s airspace earlier this week is not an isolated incident and impacts more than just Poland,’ the NATO commander, U.S. Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, said when he announced the new measures, adding, ‘NATO is not waiting; we are acting.’

   “Putin has surely noticed this resolve, and it might be worrying him. He had a two-hour phone call yesterday with Trump—‘Great progress was made,’ the American president wrote on Truth Social—and the leaders agreed to meet in Budapest in the next few weeks to discuss a potential end to the war. This call came ahead of a planned meeting today between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Putin seems to understand that he must act with some urgency if he wants to keep the allies divided, which has always been his strategy.

   “Trump, whose commitment to the transatlantic alliance is predicated on how much the member states spend on defense, affirmed last month that the United States would defend Poland and the Baltic countries. He didn’t elaborate on how, and at times seemed to qualify his remarks, so it was hardly an ironclad commitment. But considering that this is the same man who said last year that Russia should ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to NATO countries that don’t meet his high defense-spending targets, this is progress.

   “… Speaking with other government officials and security experts in Europe, I found a cautious but clear sense that there is rare alignment between Trump and European leaders on how to pressure Putin—maybe even enough to rid the Russian leader of his irrational fantasies of finally conquering Ukraine.”

   Read more: [https://theatln.tc/iSjyRLQl](https://theatln.tc/iSjyRLQl) 

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