Large-scale military exercises on both sides of NATO’s eastern frontier have raised tensions after a wave of drones entered Polish airspace, prompting a rapid allied response and heightening fears of miscalculation in an already volatile region.
Polish authorities and NATO partners scrambled aircraft and shot down multiple unmanned aerial vehicles that crossed into Poland on 9 September, in what Warsaw described as a dangerous breach of its airspace. The episode led to emergency defensive measures and an immediate increase in NATO readiness along the eastern flank.
At the same time, Moscow and Minsk began large-scale drills under the Zapad 2025 exercise inside Belarus with another 40,000 troops, while Poland and NATO allies has rolled out Iron Gate 2025, putting 40,000 soldiers on maneuvers along its eastern border with Belarus and near Russia’s Kaliningrad. Both sides say their exercises are defensive; however the simultaneous deployments — and the recent drone activity — have produced an unusually concentrated military presence in the same neighbourhood.
NATO responded by accelerating defensive measures to bolster protections for member states on the eastern flank. Officials said allied air and ground assets were repositioned to ensure rapid interception capability after the breach. Warsaw also invoked heightened consultations with NATO partners in response to the incident.
