As tensions mount across Europe and beyond, Western leaders are facing a dual challenge: a surge in Russian greyzone tactics on NATO’s eastern flank and a dramatic escalation of hostile activity in space. Both fronts, while vastly different in terrain, are becoming increasingly intertwined in what officials describe as a new era of hybrid warfare—one where the boundaries between physical and digital, earth and orbit, are blurring at an alarming pace.
On September 20, 2025, a senior Russian military official, now believed to be a defector, sounded the alarm about an impending “greyzone” attack on Poland before Christmas. According to intelligence shared during London’s DSEI arms fair, the warning was delivered via an Eastern European ally, prompting urgent talks in both the UK and the US. The scenario is chilling: a deniable, non-nuclear strike on Polish territory, designed not to start a full-scale war, but to test NATO’s resolve and destabilize Europe politically. The intelligence, reportedly from a Russian army Major General who has since left Russia, is now under close assessment by senior transatlantic officials, as reported by Express.
Recent weeks have seen Moscow ramp up its pressure on NATO’s borders. Three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets, capable of carrying hypersonic missiles, brazenly breached Estonian airspace, circling for 12 minutes over the Gulf of Finland before being intercepted. Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal labeled the incident “unprecedentedly brazen,” while former U.S. President Donald Trump warned it could spell “big trouble.” The UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper echoed the concern, stating, “The UK stands with our Estonian allies, following yet another reckless incursion into NATO airspace by Russia. We must continue to increase pressure on Putin, including driving forward the new sanctions announced by the UK and the EU.”
But the most serious violation came last week, when Russia dispatched 19 drones into Polish airspace—the gravest breach of NATO territory to date, according to British officials. At the same time, a drone crossed 10 kilometers into Romania and lingered for nearly 50 minutes. Britain responded by announcing that RAF Typhoon jets would begin air defense missions over Poland as part of NATO’s Eastern Sentry operation, with aircraft operating from RAF Coningsby and supported by Voyager tankers from Brize Norton. French, German, Danish, and Swedish forces are also joining the effort to patrol the alliance’s vulnerable eastern flank.
“This reflects a new era of threat that demands a new era of defense,” a UK government spokesperson told Express. The deployment followed an emergency session of the North Atlantic Council, during which Poland triggered Article 4 of the NATO treaty. Allies expressed full solidarity, but Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s words were stark: the country is now “closer to military conflict than at any time since the Second World War.”
The defector’s warning has injected a new sense of urgency into NATO’s planning, especially as winter approaches and political cohesion in Europe becomes increasingly fragile. “There’s no suggestion of a full-scale invasion,” one UK official said. “But a calibrated strike—something deniable, something confusing—is exactly how Russia has operated in the past.”
Analysts warn that Russia’s drone attacks are part of a deliberate strategy of economic warfare and greyzone tactics. Mykola Kuzmin of the Henry Jackson Society explained, “You’re using multi-million-pound fighter jets to shoot down drones worth a few thousand. That’s not sustainable, and Russia knows it.” He added, “Russia launched at least 23 drones into Poland. That’s not just poor interception, it’s economic warfare. It costs Russia under £100,000 to build a drone. It costs NATO millions to shoot one down.”
Kuzmin described the pattern as a classic greyzone tactic: actions short of war, designed to provoke confusion, hesitation, and fear. “They’re probing NATO,” he said. “If they can strike Poland and NATO flinches—even slightly—it undermines the whole alliance.”
Strategically, Russia’s interest in the Suwałki Gap—a narrow corridor linking Poland to the Baltic states and cutting off Kaliningrad, Russia’s militarized exclave—remains central. “In Cold War terms, Kaliningrad is their Cuba,” Kuzmin noted. “It’s a forward base packed with jamming systems, listening posts, and strategic leverage. A probe there sends a message to every capital in Europe.”
Meanwhile, new NATO member Finland has found itself the target of a coordinated Russian information warfare campaign. The Institute for the Study of War recently warned that Kremlin rhetoric about Finland’s “neutral veneer” and alleged “depopulation” in the country’s southeast is meant to lay the groundwork for further provocations along the Gulf of Finland.
Yet, as the threat on earth intensifies, Western military officials are also sounding the alarm about the skies above. On September 19, 2025, Major General Vincent Chusseau, commander of the French Space Command, warned of “intensifying hostile or unfriendly activity in space, particularly by Russia,” in his first international interview since taking command. According to Reuters, Chusseau said there has been a significant spike in hostile space activity since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with jamming, lasers, and cyberattacks on satellites now commonplace.
“Space is now a fully fledged operational domain,” Chusseau told Reuters. France, Europe’s largest government spender in space, previously accused Moscow in 2018 of attempting to spy on a Franco-Italian military satellite with a prowling spacecraft. Since then, however, suspect maneuvers have gone largely unreported. Russia, for its part, denies deploying weapons in space and claims to oppose the weaponization of orbit, despite assertions from the United States that Russia has launched orbital weapons capable of inspecting and attacking other satellites.
China, too, is rapidly developing its space capabilities, launching ever more satellites and developing new modes of action in orbit. “Each day shows dizzying progress—launching ever more satellites for new constellations, developing modes of action that go beyond what we had seen before,” Chusseau said.
Western nations have been quick to highlight the growing threat to satellites, which are essential for both military and economic functions ranging from banking to energy management. “This economic and military dependence on space is increasingly being held at risk,” Major General Paul Tedman, head of UK Space Command, said in a recent speech in London. “The threat is growing in scale, in sophistication, and in speed.”
Canada’s Brigadier General Christopher Horner, speaking at a Paris conference, revealed there are now more than 200 anti-satellite weapons in orbit—a figure he called “shocking.” These weapons pose risks to everything from satellite communications to earth observation and space-domain awareness.
To meet these challenges, Germany is pushing ahead with plans to build a multi-orbit satellite constellation, with the first stage set for completion in 2029. France, meanwhile, is focused on increasing the resilience of its space assets, particularly in low-Earth orbit, where the growth of networks like Elon Musk’s Starlink has changed the game. France has also announced a series of demonstrator satellites to patrol orbit and monitor adversaries, with an eye toward acquiring surface-to-space capabilities to “deny, prohibit, and disrupt” hostile actions.
Chusseau emphasized that France is accelerating its ability to carry out “a wide spectrum of effects in space…not only to see and understand, but also to act.” Although France and its allies rarely discuss offensive capabilities openly, the message is clear: as the risks multiply, so too must the West’s readiness to defend its interests, both on the ground and far above it.
With winter approaching and the political temperature rising, Europe and its allies are bracing for a season of uncertainty—one where the next move, whether in the forests of Poland or the silent expanse of space, could have consequences for the entire world.
