NATO is taking measures against Moscow’s direct actions, ranging from drone incursions to acts of sabotage

Rome. Earlier this month, several American sources told the Wall Street Journal that the Kremlin is reportedly planning a limited attack on NATO against one of the Alliance’s member states in the coming years. The countdown is said to have begun this month; in the preceding weeks, European intelligence services – particularly those of Poland and the Baltic states – had already raised the alarm, warning that Russia was stepping up hybrid operations against NATO countries to test the Alliance’s resilience and undermine support for Ukraine through suspected acts of sabotage, arson, damage to critical infrastructure and drone incursions into airspace. At a meeting on 12 August, NATO countries issued a statement condemning Russia for its violations of Polish and Romanian airspace and said they were “united and resolute in defending their territory”. 

For these reasons too, European military and defence planning is reportedly considering scenarios based on almost complete European self-sufficiency and the absence of direct US involvement in the defence of the Baltic Sea region. According to rumours leaked by American newspapers in recent days, during yesterday’s surprise visit to Moscow, CIA Director John Ratcliffe may have warned Russia – based on US intelligence analysis – against launching a limited attack on NATO in the near future. These are signs of an escalation in Putin’s war.

A month ago, between 24 and 26 July, Romanian forces shot down three drones in three days, one of which was twelve kilometres from Sulina and over Romanian territorial waters. One of the drones was identified as a Shahed model, used by Russia. Just a few days later, a Russian Kh-101 flew through Polish airspace and crashed near the agricultural area of Tarnawa-Kolonia, in the Lublin region, about one hundred kilometres from the Ukrainian border, leaving a ten-metre crater. NATO confirmed the missile’s Russian origin shortly afterwards: “In response to a Russian missile of an as yet unknown type that entered Polish airspace and subsequently crashed on Polish territory – one of many missiles launched by Russia against Ukraine during the night – NATO and Poland activated their air and ground defences”.  On 4 August, Polish fighter jets intercepted a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft 56 kilometres from the city of Koszalin, in the West Pomerania region. The previous day, the Polish army had reported another interception of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea, noting that the aircraft was flying with its transponder switched off. In mid-August, NATO aircraft shot down a drone that had entered Latvian airspace: its Ukrainian origin was subsequently confirmed, and the Latvian ministry stated that it had entered Latvian airspace as a result of “Russian electromagnetic warfare”. On 20 August, Romania stated that it had deployed two F-16 fighter jets to destroy an explosive marine drone launched by Russia, which was threatening “hundreds of lives” near one of its gas extraction platforms, a few hundred metres from the Neptun Deep platform, 80 miles east of the Romanian city of Constanța on the Black Sea: this was the second such incident in two months. Also in recent weeks, the Telegraph published an investigation in which it detailed the existence of ten Russian bases housing long-range kamikaze drones, ready to be launched deep into NATO territory.

Drone incursions also include GPS jamming, a form of ‘electronic warfare’ developed by Russia to divert drones carrying explosives into NATO airspace: since Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, dozens of similar incidents have been recorded in Europe, particularly in the Baltic, Nordic and Black Sea regions. According to data from a monitoring station run by the Polish National Telecommunications Institute, Poland recorded an increasing number of disruptions to its satellite navigation systems this summer, with complete outages occurring in 63 per cent of the first 19 days of August.

On 5 August, a drone laden with explosives was found next to a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport, prompting the German airport to step up its security measures. Shortly afterwards, on the same day, a DHL cargo plane was forced to abort its landing due to the airport closure and collided with what is believed to have been a second drone. Five days later, on 10 August, a powerful explosion struck a factory owned by Emco, one of Bulgaria’s largest private arms manufacturers, which produces 155 mm artillery ammunition for Ukraine. The explosion was caused by a fire that spread from a truck parked nearby to a warehouse. On 13 August, there was a similar explosion at the munitions factory in Colleferro, in the province of Rome. Last week, Latvia arrested three of its citizens on charges of setting fire to a building belonging to the drone manufacturer Milrem Robotics in neighbouring Estonia on the night of 15 August. Lithuania has also charged six people with attempting to set fire to a factory supplying radio-frequency scanners in Kyiv.

According to some studies, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is reportedly testing emerging technologies that could fill gaps in surveillance to track Russian submarines. Last month, the Kremlin diverted some of its most advanced warships to escort sanctioned oil tankers belonging to the ‘shadow fleet’ near British territorial waters, including a frigate armed with hypersonic missiles. When, on 17 August, Moscow’s new submarine, the Khabarovsk, left the port of Severodvinsk for the first time to undertake trials in the White Sea, Russian propagandists urged Putin to use the nuclear-powered submarine – designed to carry the Poseidon underwater drone – against the UK in retaliation for its decision to supply drones to Kyiv. On 2 August, as part of the European Operation Irini to monitor arms and oil trafficking, the Italian Navy boarded a Russian oil tanker in international waters off the coast of Pantelleria.

In recent weeks, the German government has launched an investigation into Moscow’s attempts to influence the regional elections due to be held in the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, through ‘Operation Matryoshka’, which had already been reported during the 2025 federal elections. In France, too, a group affiliated with the Russian intelligence agency, the GRU, has launched a disinformation campaign against Raphaël Glucksmann, a moderate left-wing candidate in next year’s French elections.