Chapter 1
Since the summer of 2026 Russia’s war on Ukraine has repeatedly reached…
Since the summer of 2026 Russia’s war on Ukraine has repeatedly reached the territory, airspace and waters of NATO members: drones over Romania, Latvia and Lithuania, a cruise missile in a Polish field, an explosive drone at a German airport, and in October merchant ships sunk and set alight off Romania and Bulgaria. Each incident puts the same question to the alliance — what it owes the member that was touched. Its sharpest test is Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, under which any ally can oblige the others to sit down in formal consultation. NATO’s own register lists nine such requests since 1949, the last two Poland’s and Estonia’s in September 2025. No ally touched in 2026 has added to it. Instead the answer has been jets in the air, diplomats expelled and statements of solidarity — talk the alliance chooses, rather than consultations a member compels.
Chapter 2
The pattern set in Romania
The pattern set in Romania. On July 24 a Romanian F-16 shot down a Shahed-type drone over Romanian soil, the country’s first such kill since the full-scale invasion; three more drones crossed in the next three days. Bucharest expelled a Russian diplomat and recalled its ambassador, and its interim foreign minister said Article 4 remained available. It was not used. On July 30 a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crashed about 90 kilometres inside Poland, the deepest confirmed penetration of NATO airspace by a Russian missile in the war. NATO confirmed its Russian origin; Poland’s prime minister said there was no reason to think Poland was the target, a judgement about intent that nothing published can yet test. Not every object was Russian: a drone that exploded inside Bulgaria on August 8 was, by Bulgaria’s own analysis, a Ukrainian decoy gone astray. On August 12 NATO’s ambassadors met in the North Atlantic Council and condemned Russia for the incursions — the first collective, council-level response — and still no member asked for Article 4.
Chapter 3
Through August and September the incidents spread along the alliance’s…
Through August and September the incidents spread along the alliance’s eastern edge, and visiting allies did much of the shooting. Italian jets on NATO’s Baltic air-policing mission downed a drone over Latvia on August 14 and another, carrying explosives, over Lithuania on September 15; a Spanish F-18 downed one over Romania on August 16; a Romanian F-16 destroyed an explosive sea drone beside the Neptun Deep gas project on August 20. Attribution was often left open: Latvia pointed to Russian jamming of a drone that entered from Belarus, and Lithuania’s defence minister wanted the debris analysed before naming anyone. Romania’s defence ministry counted at least 23 Russian drone violations of its airspace in 2026, more than in the four previous years together, while saying it could not conclude the rise was deliberate. Ukraine’s foreign minister called the incidents a deliberate campaign, a claim whose intent half is unproven. On September 1 Germany formally blamed Russia for the August explosive-drone attack at Leipzig/Halle airport, its first such attribution for an attack on German soil, closed a Russian consulate — and declined to invoke Article 4. On September 16 the European Commission proposed a European counterpart, an Emergency Security Protocol any member could trigger; it has not been adopted.
Chapter 4
In October the war reached allied waters
In October the war reached allied waters. On October 5 and 6 drones struck three merchant ships in the economic zones of Romania and Bulgaria, outside their territorial seas; two sailors died and one ship’s crew was never found. Neither government named an attacker, and Bulgaria’s president called Article 4 consultations unproductive, after, by an opposition leader’s account, a declaration seeking them was voted down. Between October 13 and 15 four more ships were hit, one of them a tanker inside Romania’s territorial waters, which are sovereign territory as an economic zone is not. NATO’s council is to discuss the Black Sea; Romania has not asked for Article 4, and Bulgaria asked the alliance for air defence. What remains unresolved is who launched the drones at the ships, on evidence a struck government will stand behind, and whether any incident will move an ally from asking the alliance to talk to obliging it to.
And now
The drones are now being shot down over Romania’s own waters, and the alliance’s answer is still a meeting.
On the evening of October 17 two Romanian F-16s downed two jet-powered Geran-family attack drones 20–25 km off Sulina, within minutes of their crossing into Romanian airspace. The defence ministry placed both over Romania’s territorial waters and did not say where they came from. The foreign minister said the North Atlantic Council would hold a dedicated meeting on Black Sea defence on October 20, at Romania’s request. No ally has asked for Article 4; NATO’s register still ends with Estonia in September 2025.
On land, Poland has formally blamed Russia for sabotage. A fire on September 23 hit a Starlink ground station at Wola Krobowska that carries traffic to Ukraine. On October 12 Poland said German police had detained two Turkish suspects at its request, and its special-services minister said Russian intelligence was behind the attack; nothing published yet links the suspects to Russia. Poland is treating it as a prosecution.
Bulgaria’s request for NATO combat aircraft and counter-drone systems goes to allied ambassadors this week, with no answer yet.
Where it stands today →