Tusk: Russia Planning Hybrid Strikes on NATO Territory — SkimNews
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- Donald Tusk told Poland's parliament that Russia is preparing hybrid strikes using drones or rockets on European countries backing Ukraine—including Poland—and would falsely claim the attacks were "accidental" to weaken NATO's response.
- Tusk said the threat is heightened by Russia's growing use of jet-powered drones that fly higher and faster, making them harder for air defense to detect before reaching targets.
- Russia has shifted attacks toward Ukraine's border crossings with European neighbors, with four incidents on the Poland-Ukraine border in the past week and others on the Ukraine-Moldova border.
- Tusk announced he will travel to Ukraine overnight Thursday, days after European leaders narrowly escaped a drone strike on a train near the Polish-Ukrainian border on Sunday.
- Tusk said Russia is not ready for peace talks without "total capitulation of Ukraine" and that intelligence points to near-term, high-intensity attacks on six major Ukrainian cities.
- Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that "major progress" is being made toward a permanent U.S. Army base in Poland, after a delegation visited candidate sites last week.
- In May, the U.S. unexpectedly withdrew troops from roughly 10,000 stationed in Poland, though officials on both sides said the pullback was temporary and would not harm Polish security.
Why it matters: Tusk's public naming of the hybrid-attack risk—citing CIA, NATO, and Ukrainian intelligence—means Warsaw is no longer hedging about threats to NATO's eastern flank. With four border-crossing strikes in a week and a drone nearly hitting European leaders' train, Russia-NATO friction has shifted from theoretical to active, jeopardizing Poland's aid corridors into Ukraine this winter.
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