NATO deputy commander for Europe Air Chief Marshal Sir John Stringer said Tuesday that Vladimir Putin is growing more risk-prone as the Ukraine war drags on and seeks to divide Western allies. He urged NATO to respond carefully to avoid provoking an overreaction.
Stringer said drone incursions into NATO airspace can be difficult to classify as deliberate or accidental: Russian GPS jamming and other countermeasures against Ukrainian drone strikes can send drones off course. He said Moscow could escalate such activity, but that does not mean it has decided to do so.
A British defence official said the UK does not assess Putin as seeking direct confrontation with NATO. Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal called a conventional attack on Europe “improbable,” citing the risk of a NATO response and Russian forces tied down in Ukraine. She said covert hostile activity would persist until Putin changes his military goals; an AP map showed such incidents rising from 59 in March 2025 to more than 210.