Russian plane, drones and missiles have violated NATO airspace dozens of instances for the reason that full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022.
Individually, many of those incidents seem minor: a drone crash right here, a quick fighter incursion there, a missile found solely after the very fact.
However taken collectively, I imagine the numbers inform a much more troubling story.
To get a full image of the size of violations, I performed a scientific evaluate of Russian airspace violations towards NATO members from 2022 via the top of 2025.
It reveals not simply a rise however a pointy acceleration accompanied by rising severity and widening geographic scope. In 2025 alone, NATO members recorded 18 confirmed Russian airspace violations – thrice as many as in 2024 and greater than half of all incidents recorded over the four-year interval. This was not a gradual escalation; it was a dramatic change.
Choosing up tempo
Between 2022 and 2024, the annual variety of violations rose steadily however modestly. There have been 4 incidents in 2022, 5 in 2023 and 6 in 2024.
That corresponds to year-on-year will increase of roughly 25% and 20%. In 2025, the rely jumped from six to 18, a 200% enhance in a single 12 months. And that tempo has continued into 2026 – as of Feb. 18 there have been at the very least two violations of NATO airspace by Russia.
Such a surge is statistically and strategically vital. It strongly means that Russian airspace violations are not episodic spillovers from the conflict in Ukraine, however a part of a sustained sample of stress directed at NATO itself.
The character of those incidents has additionally modified. In 2022, all 4 violations had been what I classify as low-intensity occasions: transient incursions into Swedish airspace by Russian fighters, the crash of an Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone in Romania and the later discovery of a Russian cruise missile in Poland. These incidents had been severe however short-lived and geographically restricted.
By 2023, violations had develop into extra repetitive. Romania alone skilled a number of drone incursions and particles discoveries over a number of months, typically triggering fighter scrambles. All 5 incidents that 12 months fell right into a midrange severity class: extra persistent than earlier than however nonetheless largely confined to frame areas.
The transition towards higher-intensity incursions grew to become clearer in 2024. Of the six violations that 12 months, half concerned high-severity traits akin to deeper penetration of a NATO nation or broader geographic publicity.
A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace, drones entered Romania on a number of consecutive nights, and a Russian drone crashed properly inside Latvian territory. These incidents expanded each the depth and the geographic footprint of violations.
Then got here 2025. Of the 18 violations recorded that 12 months, a transparent majority qualify as high-severity occasions. These embrace a Russian drone that penetrated almost 60 miles (100 kilometers) into Polish territory earlier than crashing close to Osiny with out prior radar detection; a drone that remained inside Romanian airspace for roughly 4 hours, crossing a number of counties earlier than crashing in Vaslui; and a large 21-drone swarm over Poland on Sept. 9-10 that compelled the closure of main civilian airports in Warsaw, Rzeszów and Lublin.
Manned plane additionally returned in drive. Russian MiG-31 interceptors flew over Estonia for about 12 minutes with transponders – onboard units that mechanically reply to radar alerts by transmitting an plane’s id and altitude, enabling air visitors management and air protection techniques to trace it – switched off. In October, a Russian Su-30 fighter accompanied by an Il-78 refueling tanker violated Lithuanian airspace – an unmistakable sign of endurance and deliberate mission planning.
In December, suspected Russian drones had been shot down and later recovered in Turkey on a number of dates, indicating a persistent provocation somewhat than a one-off incursion.
Maybe most strikingly, Western Europe was seemingly not exempt. On Dec. 4, 2025, 5 unidentified drones flew over France’s Île Longue naval base, house to the nation’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines. French personnel reportedly fired on the suspected Russian drones.
Simply weeks later, on Christmas Day, Polish fighters intercepted a Russian reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea.
Gray-zone techniques
Severity and frequency will not be the one dimensions that modified. Geographical attain has, too.
In 2022, Russian violations affected three NATO members. By 2024, that quantity had grown to 4. In 2025, it expanded to 6: Romania, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Turkey and France.
Strain was utilized concurrently within the Black Sea area, the Baltic states and Western Europe.
This widening scope issues as a result of it undermines the concept that these incidents are localized accidents. As an alternative, they resemble a distributed sample of Russia probing throughout NATO’s jap and southern flanks and into its strategic core.
NATO’s political response displays this shift. For the primary time for the reason that conflict started, members invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the mechanism for collective session when a member feels its safety is threatened.
Poland did so after the September 2025 drone swarm, and Estonia adopted after the MiG-31 incursion later that month. Though solely two of the 18 incidents triggered Article 4, their timing is revealing: No such invocations occurred within the earlier three years mixed.
From a strategic standpoint, the hazard lies much less in any single violation than of their cumulative impact. Airspace incursions sit in a gray zone between peace and open battle. They impose operational and psychological prices, check air protection techniques and supply precious intelligence on NATO’s detection thresholds and response instances, all whereas staying beneath the authorized threshold of armed assault.
Testing NATO’s resolve
The information from 2025 and early 2026 present that this grey-zone exercise has intensified dramatically. A threefold enhance in a single 12 months, coupled with a shift towards deeper, longer and extra disruptive incidents throughout a number of theaters, factors to a deliberate marketing campaign somewhat than unintentional spillover.
For NATO, the implication is evident. Monitoring particular person incidents is not enough. What now issues is the speed of acceleration, the severity profile and the geographic dispersion of violations.
If present traits persist because the conflict in Ukraine enters its fifth 12 months, the alliance’s best problem will not be responding to a single dramatic breach however managing the mounting stress created by many smaller ones – every calibrated to check resolve with out triggering open battle.
Frederic Lemieux, Professor of the Observe and School Director of the Grasp’s in Utilized Intelligence, Georgetown College
This text is republished from The Dialog beneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.
