The incursion was contained \u2013 jets scrambled, drones downed, consultations under NATO\u2019s Article 4 requested<\/a>. But the episode was a reminder that the continent is increasingly on the front line of a geopolitical storm, and that its response is still tentative.<\/p>\n Moscow\u2019s drones were a low-cost provocation, but their significance lies in what they revealed. Russia has grown adept at using grey-zone tactics \u2013 cyberattacks, disinformation, energy blackmail, and now aerial harassment \u2013 to stretch Western attention and probe for weakness. Poland is not Ukraine: it is both an European Union and NATO member. That Vladimir Putin\u2019s regime feels able to risk such a stunt<\/a> is telling.<\/p>\n It is also awkwardly timed. On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump is still casting doubt on America\u2019s security guarantees. His studied indifference to the Polish incursion, brushing it off as \u201cperhaps a mistake,\u201d only deepens Europe\u2019s sense of vulnerability. <\/p>\n That Trump rolled out the red carpet to Putin in Alaska last month is seen as a humiliation to Europe. It also came on the back of the EU\u2019s \u201csurrender deal\u201d with the US in July, when it meekly accepted a one-sided tariff deal with Trump. Nor is Britain exempt from such coercion: its own deal in May was no better.<\/p>\n Europeans have long fretted that American protection could not be assumed forever; now they face the reality of its unreliability under Trump\u2019s transactional administration. For Russia, the ambiguity is useful. For Europe, it is dangerous.<\/p>\n Russia is hardly the only concern. China looms as both economic partner and systemic rival, able to squeeze Europe through its grip on critical raw materials and technologies. EU officials talk of \u201cde-risking\u201d from Beijing, but European unity is patchy. Berlin\u2019s carmakers remain wedded to the Chinese market; southern economies fret about antagonising their biggest non-Western investor. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Europe\u2019s house is not in order. Its economy has been stuttering for the past two decades and is still unable to complete the single market promised in the 1980s in areas like banking, energy and defence. National budgets remain constrained, industrial policy fragmented, procurement splintered. \u201cStrategic autonomy\u201d remains more slogan than structure.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her State of the Union address just hours after the Russian drones were shot down, she was more strident than usual, warning that Europe is in \u201cA fight for our values and our democracies\u201d and asking, \u201cDoes Europe have the stomach for this fight?\u201d <\/p>\n She is echoed by politicians, who urge the EU and NATO to move quickly in the face of a fast-changing world. \u201cWe face an existential threat,\u201d says Valerie Hayer, an MEP and key ally of French President Emmanuel Macron. \u201cThe world is reorganising before our eyes, and global powers want to marginalise us. Russia is at the EU\u2019s borders. This new world is hostile to us.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SEI_265353725.jpg\")
A view from a transport military plane shows Russian airborne combat vehicles descending beneath parachutes during the previous \u2018Zapad-2021\u2019 military exercises staged by the armed forces of Russia and Belarus in Kaliningrad Region, Russia, in September 2021 (Photo: Vitaly Nevar\/Reuters)<\/p>\n![\"TURNBERRY,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SEI_260365794.jpg\")
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen meets with US President Donald Trump at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 27, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland (Photo by Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n