Czech President Petr Pavel has urged NATO to “show its teeth” in response to what he described as Russian “provocations” on the bloc’s eastern flank.
Pavel’s remarks follow a series of Ukrainian drone incursions into NATO airspace in Europe. Since mid-March, long-range UAVs have repeatedly crossed Baltic and Nordic airspace en route to targets in northwestern Russia, particularly oil facilities in Leningrad Region. The incursions prompted fighter jet deployments, and some drones crashed inside NATO states, causing damage.
Moscow has accused European NATO members of quietly allowing Kiev to use their airspace for attacks on Russian territory, but Western officials deny this, instead blaming Russia for the incursions and claiming that Russian electronic warfare systems may have redirected the drones to stray into NATO airspace.
In an interview with The Guardian published Friday, Pavel echoed the accusations, claiming that Russia was intentionally staging “provocations” operating just below the threshold that would trigger NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5. He also claimed that Russian military officials openly mock the bloc’s indecision during such incidents, and called for “decisive enough, potentially even asymmetric” responses to counter Moscow’s actions.
“Russia, unfortunately, does not understand nice language. They mostly understand the language of power, ideally accompanied with action,” he claimed. “When I asked them why they do these provocative actions in the air… their answer was ‘because we can’. That’s exactly the kind of behavior we allowed.”
Citing earlier Western allegations of Russian “provocations” in the Black and Baltic Seas – such as fighter jet intercepts and purported airspace violations – Pavel suggested that NATO should consider shooting down “either an unmanned or manned” Russian aircraft if spotted near its borders. Moscow has denied the accusations, insisting its patrols occur in international airspace and are a necessary response to Western reconnaissance flights near Russian borders.
Pavel also proposed “potentially asymmetric” measures against Moscow, including disrupting internet access, targeting satellites, or cutting Russian banks off from the global financial system, measures he said “are not killing people, but are sensitive enough to make Russia understand this is not the way they should go.”
Pavel’s position echoes that of several other NATO countries. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Thursday that NATO states should actually help Kiev “direct” drone attacks “in the right directions.” Latvian and Estonian officials defended Ukrainian incursions by saying that Kiev “has every right to defend itself.”
Finland, however, rebuked Kiev over the breaches of its airspace, while Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico urged renewed dialogue with Moscow, warning of potential Ukrainian drone provocations involving NATO territory that he said could trigger direct conflict between Russia and the bloc.
Multiple Western officials have claimed that Moscow could test the alliance through provocations and hybrid operations, or eventually attack European states after the Ukraine conflict ends. Citing the purported threat, European NATO members last year pledged to raise military spending to 5% of GDP and launched rearmament initiatives such as ReArm Europe.
Moscow, however, dismissed claims that it poses a threat to Europe as baseless “nonsense” and condemned what it calls reckless EU militarization. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently accused European “warmongers” of portraying Russia as a “model external enemy” to distract from domestic problems.
I argue that European states have made themselves legitimate targets by being participants in attacks on Russia. The emotional and often hysterical reactions this argument provokes reveal the extent of the radicalisation engulfing Europe.
Most countries avoid sending weapons to states engaged in war precisely because doing so risks making them participants in the conflict. Many Western leaders, from Boris Johnson to Marco Rubio, recognise that this is a proxy war. European states provide weapons, intelligence, targeting, planning, and contractors. European leaders openly speak about the need to bring the war to Russian territory and to destroy Russian refineries, while rapidly expanding the production of long-range weapons to support this objective. Attacks are now also being launched from the territory of the Baltic states. It is therefore difficult to deny that European states are directly involved in military actions against Russia. As this involvement escalates, Russia is under ever-greater pressure to retaliate and restore its deterrence. This should all be common sense, yet in Europe, recognising the march to war is considered a controversial observation. Why?
The responses I receive rarely address this argument directly. Instead, they focus on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and war crimes. Whatever one’s views on those issues, they do not alter the question of Western participation in attacks on Russia. The implicit argument seems to be that Russia is uniquely evil, and therefore the West is justified in attacking Russia while Russia is not permitted to respond. Most people would recognise that if Russia had launched missiles into Washington or London in response to the invasion of Iraq, it would have been understood as a Russian attack with unpredictable consequences. By attacking Russian forces in Ukraine, European states became involved in the conflict; by attacking inside Russia itself, they are deepening that involvement further and making a Russian retaliation inevitable. Ukraine’s right to self-defence has nothing to do with the discussion of European participation. There was a time when President Biden argued that sending F16s to Ukraine meant World War 3, today this argument would be smeared and censored in Europe as “Russian propaganda”. The instinct for self-preservation is gone.
I argue that Europeans have become radicalised because there now appears to be a widespread belief that acknowledging the reality of European involvement is treasonous. In their minds, reality is a social construction. Warning that Europe may be heading toward a direct war with Russia is condemned as “legitimising” Russian retaliation and dismissed as a “pro-Russian” position. The prevalence of constructivism and the focus on “speech acts” have led to the belief that even using realist analysis and discussing competing national interests entails legitimising realpolitik and thus socially constructing a more dangerous reality. Speech acts refer to the use of language as a source of power to construct political realities and influence outcomes. Everything is interpreted as normative statements about what one supports or wishes how the world worked, as opposed to recognising an objective reality of the world. If one does not participate in the suicidal self-delusion, then there will be accusations of having taken the side of Russia. Had this radicalised mentality prevailed during the Cold War, we would never have survived.
Academics in Europe are forced into the role of activists. It is impossible to analyse conflicts without being met with the demand to condemn Hamas, Iran, Russia and the “other” to prove you have picked our side. This is the ideological litmus test to establish if you are allowed to participate in the discussion or must be purged from polite society. The role of academics is analytical, not moralistic. The purpose is to explain motivations, power distribution and strategic behaviour. An objective analysis allows us to pursue the best policy to maximise our security. The demand to conform to the “correct” moral posture and EU-approved speech acts implies obligatory participation in the emotional and hysterical sloganeering. When the premise in any discussion is that we are in a struggle between good and evil, then security can only mean victory or deterrence. War creates peace, diplomacy is appeasement, and Europeans celebrate ignorance by criminalising the ability to recognise the security concerns of the other side.
In Europe, it is also considered “Russian propaganda” to argue that NATO expansionism provoked the Ukraine War. The overwhelming evidence supporting it is irrelevant and will under no circumstance be discussed, as it is considered an immoral argument that legitimises Russia’s invasion. Our political leaders frame all their policies as “pro-Ukrainian”: the toppling of Yanukovych, arming the far-right militias, sabotaging the Minsk peace agreement, ignoring Russian security concerns, supporting busification, boycotting diplomacy, etc. What makes this “pro-Ukrainian”? Did any of this do anything good for Ukraine? These questions cannot be asked because they are considered to be “pro-Russian” questions. Everyone has empathy for the gruesome situation in Ukraine, and would like to support those who suffer, and the European leaders have claimed the right to monopolise on what a “pro-Ukrainian” position entails – to fight to the last Ukrainian.
Similarly, warnings about Europe’s march to war with the world’s largest nuclear power by participating in attacks are viewed as treasonous efforts to reduce trust, legitimacy and support for the NATO war efforts at the behest of Russia. “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE Dmitry Polyanskiy warned that NATO’s growing involvement in the conflict with Russia is pushing Europe toward a dangerous threshold.
“I would advise against testing the limits of our patience and the limits of our self-restraint,” Polyanskiy said on Deep Dive.
He stressed that Russia has avoided harsher steps not out of weakness, but because it is thinking about the consequences for civilians in Europe.
“They confuse it with weakness,” he said. “No, Russia doesn’t react because Russia is humane.”
Europe is already directly involved by providing weapons, missiles, airspace and production facilities for Ukraine, Polyanskiy stressed.
“They have already crossed all the red lines,” he warned, adding that if this continues, Russia’s response could be “harsh” and “resolute.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte wants NATO members to cough up 0.25% of their GDP for Ukraine. This figure seems minuscule, but how much hard-earned taxpayer money does it add up to?
Rutte floated the idea at a closed-door meeting of NATO ambassadors last month, and will likely be raised at the bloc’s annual summit in Ankara in July, Politico reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed NATO diplomats.
How much money does Rutte want to give Ukraine?
The combined GDP of NATO’s 32 member states adds up to $57.2 trillion, according to the bloc’s figures from 2025. Assuming that the US backs Rutte’s proposal, Ukraine stands to receive a windfall of $143 billion, or more than three times the amount of military aid it received from its Western donors last year.
To put Rutte’s demand in perspective, $143 billion is:
$16 billion more than Germany’s 2026 defense budget ($127 billion)
Larger than the combined economies of Latvia and Lithuania ($130 billion)
Four times what the US spent on developing the atomic bomb ($35.5 billion, adjusted for inflation)
Almost six times what the US has spent on the war with Iran to date ($25 billion)
Enough to buy more Patriot missile batteries than currently exist (around 200)
This princely sum is separate to the 5% of GDP that NATO requires its members to spend on their own militaries, and separate to the unrepayable, debt-financed loan of €90 billion ($105 billion) that the EU has already started to funnel to Kiev.
Whose idea was this?
Unsurprisingly, the idea was first suggested by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. “Ukraine is part of Europe’s security, and we want 0.25% of the GDP of a particular partner country to be allocated to our defense industry and domestic production,” he told reporters last June.
Is every NATO member on board?
Rutte’s aim is to balance military aid to Ukraine among member states, as to date, Nordic countries like Denmark and Baltic countries have been making outsized contributions compared to some of the bloc’s larger economies. Denmark, for example, has given 3.25% of its entire GDP to Kiev since 2022, while Germany has given 0.55%. On the lower end of the scale, Hungary has given the smallest share of any NATO country at 0.04%.
France and the UK are reportedly unhappy with the proposal, even though both nations already exceed the 0.25% target. London and Paris both refused to comment when contacted by Politico. Furthermore, some unnamed EU countries reportedly want their contributions to the aforementioned €90 billion EU loan counted towards Rutte’s target.
Where will the money go?
Western military aid to Ukraine is typically spent on purchasing weapons from abroad, paying military salaries, and the research, development, and manufacture of arms within Ukraine. Zelensky insists that the money will go to Ukraine’s defense industry and domestic production – a sector that is a hotbed of corruption and graft.
In late April, surveillance tapes revealed that Timur Mindich, a business magnate and associate of Zelensky known as ‘Zelensky’s wallet’, was secretly running one of the country’s largest defense contractors from exile in Israel, and colluding with former Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to secure government contracts.
All but one of Ukraine’s wartime defense chiefs have been tied to corruption and bid-rigging scandals, Mindich is wanted on separate embezzlement charges, and Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, was arrested in May and accused of a connected money laundering scheme.
It will likely be up to individual donor countries to stipulate how their 0.25% is spent. However, RT has already covered some of the endemic rot within the Ukrainian defense sector, and the picture so far suggests that whatever the Western taxpayer sends to Kiev, there is no telling how much will be skimmed off the top along the way.
Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina has announced her resignation amid a government crisis caused by an incident involving Ukrainian kamikaze drones hitting an oil depot near the Russian border.
Silina announced the decision at a press briefing on Thursday. Just hours earlier, Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis, a member of Silina’s liberal-conservative Unity party, stated that the prime minister has no intention of leaving office. Meanwhile, the opposition was planning a procedural maneuver to circumvent the five-day pause required under Latvian law before a request for a no-confidence vote is granted.
The crisis in the Baltic state was triggered by an incident last week in which two Ukrainian long-range kamikaze drones hit an empty oil depot near the town of Rezekne, around 40 km from the Russian border. No casualties were reported on the ground.
Defense Minister Andris Spruds, who has supported Ukraine’s attacks against Russia and called the incident regrettable but understandable, resigned over the weekend. The Progressives party member said he did not want the military to be dragged into political squabbling.
MP Andris Suvajevs, who leads the Progressives parliamentary faction, stated earlier in the day that the ruling coalition was certain to collapse if a no-confidence motion is put to a vote. The prime minister was expected to take part in a session of parliament, but instead invited the media to her office to announce her resignation. She blamed “political jealousy and narrow party interests” for the crisis.
Moscow has accused NATO nations of tacitly allowing Ukraine to use their airspace to conduct strikes on targets in northwestern Russia, particularly oil export terminals in Leningrad Region. Officials in several countries where incidents involving Ukrainian drones were reported since mid-March have expressed concerns with Kiev’s military planning.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said he told Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky that Helsinki regards Ukrainian aircraft entering its airspace as unacceptable. Estonian Defense Minster Hanno Pevkur said the Ukrainians should “keep their drones away from our territory [and] control their activities better.”
MOSCOW – Russia does not rule out that the West is preparing another “bloody hoax” in Ukraine similar to the one arranged in the city of Bucha in 2022, Yulia Zhdanova, the head of the Russian delegation at the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, said on Wednesday.
NATO representatives have held three meetings with directors, screenwriters and producers working in the cinema industry in Brussels, Los Angeles and Paris, and planned a next meeting with members of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Zhdanova said.
“The letter received by those invited to these events mentions ‘three projects’ that are already in development. Perhaps NATO countries are once again preparing for another bloody hoax? For instance, like the one staged in Bucha in April 2022,” Zhdanova said at the 1136th meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in April 2022 that the footage of Bucha published by Kiev was a provocation. The ministry said that not a single local resident was subject to violence during the time that the town was under Russian control.
All Russian troops withdrew from Bucha by March 30, 2022, leaving the northward roads to and from the town open to traffic, while Ukrainian troops shelled the southern outskirts with large-caliber artillery, tanks and multiple launch rocket systems.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia rejected any accusations of involvement in the alleged deaths in Bucha and warned world leaders against jumping to conclusions without first considering Moscow’s arguments.
Springtime in Ukraine melted snow turning farmland and dirt roads into deep slush that vehicles could not cross. The ground has dried and Russian forces quicken their advance and will reach the big Dnieper River this summer. The most likely crossing point is the city of Zaporizhzhia with a population of 700,000.
It is unclear if Ukraine will fight to defend Zaporizhzhia or fall back behind the Dnieper River. If Ukraine evacuates this city, its big buildings could provide a great fortress. But Ukraine has nowhere for its 700,000 people to live and not enough transport to move them anyway. In addition, as Russian forces soon approach, their drones will patrol Zaporizhzhia bridges and attack any transport, effectively blockading the city. Ukrainian forces could become trapped on the east side of the river.
It will be interesting to see if NATO can destroy all the Dnieper bridges despite opposition from many Ukrainians, who may disrupt plans with police and military units. The Russians want them to support major forces once they cross the river. The Ukrainians know these bridges are vital national assets and not easily replaced. If all bridges are destroyed, this can delay the Russian advance for months.
French presidential hopeful Florian Philippot has called for lifting sanctions against Russia and restoring Russian energy imports. In an interview with RT, the politician claimed that Brussels-driven EU policies run counter to France’s national interests.
A former vice president of the National Front (now National Rally) and ex-member of the European Parliament, Philippot announced on Saturday that he will run in the 2027 election. He leads the sovereigntist movement ‘Les Patriotes’ and is a longtime critic of the EU, the euro, and NATO. He advocates restoring French sovereignty, reducing dependence on supranational institutions, and ending French military and financial aid to Ukraine.
“I want, and it is in my program, for France to regain its independence by leaving all the supranational globalist structures: the EU, the euro, NATO,” Florian Philippot told RT France on Sunday. “And I want a policy of dialogue and friendship with Russia, and not, as today, one of mistrust, war, and insults. All of this is absurd for our national interests.”
The politician said Paris should “take back control” by withdrawing from free trade agreements such as Mercosur, which he said “condemn French farmers to death.” He added that sanctions on Russia imposed by Brussels should be ended in order to restore the flow of Russian gas and oil.
Philippot also called for France to regain control over immigration and migration flows while pursuing a broader reindustrialization strategy. He said the country’s industrial base had been weakened under the euro and advocated restoring a national currency better suited to the French economy.
In addition, the politician pledged to expand the use of referendums, including citizen-initiated votes, as part of strengthening popular sovereignty. He also called for reducing France’s dependence on the EU, which he said is largely shaped in Berlin and Washington rather than in Paris. Philippot stressed that leaving the EU would allow France to lower energy and electricity costs.
France is heading toward a highly fragmented presidential race, with around 30 people already expressing interest in being on the 2027 ballot. These include Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of ‘La France Insoumise’, Bruno Retailleau, president of ‘Les Republicains’, Xavier Bertrand, a senior center-right politician, David Lisnard, mayor of Cannes, Laurent Wauquiez, a prominent conservative figure, and Edouard Philippe, France’s former prime minister.
NATO was always destined to be a temporary military alliance, united by a common enemy and threat during the Cold War. Once that threat disappeared with the end of the Cold War and thereafter the collapse of the Soviet Union, the main question asked in the 1990s was: What would be NATO’s new reason to exist? The answer to this question was to pursue unipolarity / collective hegemony in the post-Cold War era through NATO expansionism and military interventionism (“out of area or out of business”).
Russia was implicitly given the ultimatum: be a compliant civilizational student or a counter-civilizational force. Russia could accept NATO’s hegemonic role as a “force for good,” or it could resist, and then NATO would return to its former role of confronting Russia. The NATO-backed regime change in Ukraine—aimed at transforming the country from a Russian partner into a frontline state aligned against Russia— triggered the war in 2014. NATO thus began reverting to its former role of confronting Russia, yet it happened as the hegemonic era had come to an end.
Now that the former collective hegemony has been balanced and a multipolar world has emerged, NATO has yet again lost its purpose and will disintegrate. European leaders want to restore NATO’s original purpose: containing Russia. This will fail because it is based on the fraudulent narrative that Russia wants to restore the Soviet Union, rather than balancing NATO expansionism and military interventionism.
The US will, however, not return to the original purpose of NATO as the distribution of power has shifted, and will therefore not play along with the fake narratives of Europeans leaders. The US is in relative decline and cannot sustain simultaneous strategic dominance in Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. The US cannot be everywhere in a multipolar world, and it will pivot to the Western Hemisphere and East Asia. A US presence in Europe consumes too many resources and pushes Russia toward China, its main rival. However, the US is happy to outsource the conflict with Russia to the Europeans. Europe remains obedient, and Russia is weakened.
If Europe had rational leaders, they would have adjusted to the new international distribution of power by shutting this war down, making peace with Russia, establishing a common pan-European security architecture (35 years too late) that also saves Ukraine by removing it from the front lines of a re-divided Europe, and diversifying their economic ties to avoid excessive dependence on any one foreign power. However, Europe does not have rational leaders, and even arguing that weapons are not the path to peace or arguing in favour of diplomacy is smeared and censored as “pro-Russian” treason. Europe’s political class remains committed to Russophobic narratives and policies that intensify confrontation and prolong the conflict.
The trajectory now appears increasingly clear: NATO will continue to disintegrate, and the Europeans will compensate by further escalating the war against Russia. This will happen at a time when Russia is desperate to restore its deterrence by retaliating against Europe (most predictably against Germany), while the US commitment and protection of Europe are waning. The predictable consequence is that European leaders will eventually provoke a powerful response from Russia, which will rapidly escalate to what will hopefully only be a limited nuclear strike.
Russia has accused NATO of significantly expanding its military operations in the Baltic Sea, particularly near the Kaliningrad region, warning that the alliance’s growing presence poses risks to regional stability and international navigation.
Artem Bulatov, special envoy at the Russian Foreign Ministry, stated that NATO is intensifying efforts to enhance its combat capabilities and infrastructure in areas adjacent to Kaliningrad, pointing to a sustained military buildup under various operational frameworks.
He added that the scale and frequency of NATO drills have increased, alongside provocative actions by member states targeting vessels involved in transporting goods to and from Russia.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko warned that these activities are creating “serious threats” to international shipping routes and economic operations in the region, suggesting that NATO’s mission is effectively aimed at controlling key logistical corridors.
Grushko further argued that the alliance’s operations are designed to restrict the movement of goods linked to Russia, raising concerns in Moscow over the militarization of maritime routes in the Baltic.
Russia warns of Western shift on nuclear weapons role
Russia has expressed concern over a shifting Western approach to the role of nuclear weapons, senior diplomat Andrey Belousov said last week.
Speaking in an interview with RIA Novosti, Belousov said Moscow is increasingly alarmed by developments within what he called the “collective West,” particularly ahead of the upcoming review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The Eleventh Review Conference of the NPT is scheduled to take place in New York City from April 27 to May 22.
“Currently, a number of issues in the context of the NPT are causing us serious concern. First and foremost, this concerns a trend that could soon take on an avalanche-like nature: the widespread declaration by a number of states — primarily from the ‘collective West’ camp — of a new view on the role and place of nuclear weapons,” Belousov said.
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