Russia is planning an armed “provocation” on Polish soil to test Nato’s resolve, the United States has warned.
Polish critical infrastructure could be targeted by missiles and drones or Russian soldiers could cross the border into Nato territory.
Washington has issued several warnings to Warsaw about the plot, sources close to Karol Nawrocki, the Polish president, told Onet, the Polish news outlet, which, along with The Telegraph, is owned by Axel Springer and is part of its Global Reporters Network.
Additional context:
The United States has warned Poland that Russia may be considering an armed provocation on Polish territory in the coming months to test NATO’s resolve and pressure Western allies to scale back support for Ukraine
According to Ukrainska Pravda, citing The Telegraph, sources close to Polish President Karol Nawrocki said Washington had warned Warsaw that Russia was weighing scenarios that could include drone attacks on critical infrastructure, such as power plants, or a simulated large-scale air attack designed to force Poland to activate its air defenses.
A more radical scenario could involve a hybrid attack in Poland’s border region, potentially with the participation of Belarusian forces. Russia could attempt to explain away a border violation by claiming its troops had become lost because of GPS disruption or were carrying out a rescue mission after a helicopter emergency.
I’m not sure what to think about it - a risk certainly exists, but I can’t put a probability on it currently.
I live in one of the countries which has been warned about a provocation - Estonia. Over here, we’ve been preparing for this at some kind of a pace (IMHO too slow) for quite some years. An admission must be made: both Ukraine and Russia are way ahead in mass production and use of drones. They both punch above their weight with drones (and both have considerable weight too) and have considerably more antidrone defense set up than neighbouring countries.
Russia manufactures an awful lots of drones per day. But as long as Ukraine fights it with an equally awful lot, Russia simply lacks resources for a big provocation, since Ukraine is tying down all their resources.
Russia has fuel shortages, manpower shortages, armor and artillery shortages, no surplus of drones either (they fly to Ukraine within days of leaving a factory). There could be a stockpile of 100 or 200 Iskander short range ballistic missiles, less of other types. On the background, of course, the Soviet-built strategic missile forces exist untouched. But they’re not capable of being used with conventional warheads, since their precision is too low.
Meanwhile, Putin’s popularity is finally dropping. Parliamentary elections are approaching. It’s fairly obviouls that special services must be considering “creative” ways of taking back initiative. But I can’t clearly see what they would hope to achieve with this kind of activity.
Hypothetic perspective from Russia: “let’s f*ck around and see if NATO has resolve”
I don’t see a winning option.
I believe the idea is that they fuck around in Poland, NATO responds meekly, and Poland therefore blocks Ukraine aid to not risk further attacks from Russia if NATO doesn’t have their back.
But it sounds like a very stupid plan, agreed.