September 16, 2025 • 17 mins
In the past two weeks, both Poland and Romania have reported Russian drones flying in their airspace. Importantly, NATO forces shot down Russian aircraft for the first time in the alliance's 75-year history. Both countries are neighbours of Ukraine, which continues to face Russian airstrikes and ground offensives as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues.
But there’s a key difference between an attack on Ukraine, and an attack on Poland or Romania - and that’s NATO. On today’s podcast, we’re going to take a look at what makes Russian activity in Poland and Romania different, the idea of collective defence, and the broader implications.
Hosts: Sam Koslowski and Emma Gillespie
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the daily This is the Dailias.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
the Daily OS. It's Wednesday, the seventeenth of September. I'm
Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
In the past two weeks, both Poland and Romania have
reported Russian drones flying in their airspace. Importantly, NATO forces
shot down Russian aircraft for the first time in the
alliance's seventy five year history. Now both countries and neighbors
of Ukraine, which continues to face Russian air strikes and
ground offensives as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues.
(00:44):
But there's a key difference between an attack on Ukraine
and an attack on Poland or Romania, and that's NATO.
On today's podcast, we're going to look at what makes
Russian activity in Poland and Romania so different, the idea
of collective defense and some of the broader implications here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Sam, this is a really interesting topic that we're chatting
through today and I'm really keen to learn more. But
before we get into the kind of specifics of what's
happened in the past week over countries like Romania and Poland.
I think we need to break down a bit more
about NATO to understand what it is and how it
actually functions.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So here's where my mind went with this question that
I knew was going to come. Because this is an
important part is we could do it as a straight
politics explain now, but we could also do it like
we're at school, because we always say that these world
leaders are kind of like kids fighting in the playground.
So let's go through it in a school metaphor. Okay, okay. So, NATO,
(01:46):
which is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a military
alliance of thirty two European and North American countries. It
was founded just after World War Two and originally designed
to counter the Soviet threat during the Cold War. Now,
in the playground, if you and your thirty one other
friends make a promise to always stick up for each
(02:07):
other against bullies, no matter who that bully was, they
basically went a bit further and promised that if someone
picks on one of them, all the others will help
protect them. Okay, Now, one important thing to remember here
is that Ukraine is not a member of NATO. It's
not in that list of thirty.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Two, Ukraine goes to a different school.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It goes to a different school. It's been actually requesting
to join for a long time now. Instead, NATO classifies
Ukraine as a NATO partner country, which basically means they're
friends with the group in the playground. But if there's
only one seat left at the back of the bus,
a NATO member country is going to get it over Ukraine,
but they'll kind of go into bat for each other.
(02:47):
As a general principle, Okay, got it.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
So the core kind of principle of NATO, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization is that an attack on one ally
is an attack on all a thirty two person or party,
friendship or alliance. That's a lot of people. They've got
to be some rules around making this work, right.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, And that's the Treaty of NATO, And we refer
to the parts of that treaty as articles. And the
two articles to really pay attention to today are articles
four and five. So Article four is like when one
friend thinks they're getting bullied or something worrying happens to
them and they tell their friends, Hey, I think we
need to talk about this. So it's when one country
says to all the others, I'm worried about my safety.
(03:29):
Can we just sit down and have a discussion about
what to do? Yep? Article five is the actual promise
to help. That's like saying, in the playground, someone has
hit me, so we're all going to come and help
you out now, Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So Article four is more about maybe the perceived threat
or increased aggressions, whereas Article five is about this has
literally happened. There has been a breach of one ally,
and therefore now we are all in it.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah. And the really confusing part though, is what it
means and what help means. So Article five says that
each country will help by quote taking such action as
it deems necessary. That basically means each country decides for
itself what kind of support it provides. So it doesn't
mean that all thirty two countries go to war. Some
(04:18):
might send troops, others might offer money or diplomatic backing.
It really depends on each country's own decision making. And
so I guess in the playground it would be you
could go and tell the teacher, or you could get
directly involved in the fight.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Okay. So Article five, then it seems kind of almost
deliberately vague in its wording to give each country their
own scope to determine their response. Has it actually ever
been used? Has Article five ever been triggered by a
breach of a NATO member?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So only once, and that's remarkable, since nineteen forty nine,
and that one time was straight after nine to eleven.
So the US, who is a member of NATO, they
didn't actually even ask for it. NATO's Secretary General suggested
it as a show of solidarity after the attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the response
involved NATO's surveillance planes patrolling US territory and NATO ships
(05:15):
standing by for deployment in the Mediterranean, there's the closest
body of water to Afghanistan. But NATO didn't actually participate
in the Afghanistan invasion itself, and that's because the US
preferred to work with individual countries like Australia rather than
dealing with this whole alliance and this whole body.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Okay, fascinating, So it sounds more like in that instance
that the NATO alliance was kind of posturing its power,
this sort of aloof presence of you know, we have
these ships we have these planes we're contributing to surveillance,
but from.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
A distance exactly, and there hasn't been besides that, another
example for us to point to to see a variation
in that response.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Okay, but then in terms of Article four, which speaks
to the perception of a threat or an escalating threat,
that has been invoked much more recently, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well a couple of days ago, and it was invoked
by Poland after Poland alleged Russian drones violated its airspace.
It's significant to invoke Article four, but it's definitely not
a dramatic escalation. Any NATO member can invoke Article four
if they think their security is threatened. And interestingly, when
I was looking into what that actually looks like, NATO
(06:30):
countries meet regularly anyway, so this was kind of an
agenda item to their regular meeting of we need to
talk about this, and I think it went right up
the top of the agenda, right. But it's been used
eight times before, so Turkia has used it several times
over Syria, and eight NATO countries used it together when
Russia invaded Ukraine back in twenty twenty two. Now, Article
(06:52):
four doesn't mean that any country actually has to do anything.
It's just formal talks about a growing threat.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Okay, so a little more frequently used that article five,
but still only eight times since nineteen thirty nine. It's significant.
But let's now get into sam what has actually happened
over the past week. Now we have all this knowledge,
we understand the playground politics. Nice walk me through it.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
So we go to September nine, last week. That was
when Russia launched a massive drone attack on Ukraine, and
nineteen Russian drones ended up flying into Polish airspace. Poland
and Ukraine share of border. Poland immediately shut down four
major airports in the country and scrambled their fighter jets.
And this became NATO's real first test of working together
(07:39):
to shoot down enemy aircraft. So Polish F sixteens fighter jets,
they teamed up with Dutch F thirty fives and they
were backed up by Italian and German forces.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's quite a big response.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, it was short and sharp because by the morning
of September ten, NATO forces had shot down four of
the drones. There were no other drones in the airspace.
The rest of them either crashed or were found scattered
across Polish territory.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I remember when that new story broke last week and
was kind of splashed all over the TVs and new sites,
and it felt a little bit scary straightaway, like, oh,
my god, is Russia attacking Poland? But then Russia came
out and kind of said, oh, these were drones that
strayed into Polish territory.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, Well, the Foreign Minister said these were groundless accusations,
they had no interest in any escalation, and the Defense
Ministry even made the point that its drones couldn't actually
reach Poland because it was too far. That was all
pretty easily debunked. Investigators found that the crash drones had
been fitted with extra fuel tanks specifically for the further distance,
(08:45):
and the wreckage had identifying features that directly tied the
drones to Russia's military.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
All right, So analysts then suggesting that rather than this
kind of accidental straying into Polish territory, it might have
been a lot more of a posturing by Russia. Is
that when Poland then decided to invoke Article four.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, it was only a couple of hours after the
drones were in the air. So the Polish PM said
this brought Poland quote the closest we have been to
open conflicts since World War II. NATO's boss said this
wasn't an isolated incident, and the EU called it the
most serious European airspace violation by Russia since its war
(09:27):
with Ukraine began. And so late last week NATO held
talks under Article four at its headquarters in Belgium. And
I think another way to frame that posturing idea that
you're talking about is it sounds like what a lot
of the response is centered around. Is this idea of
Russia testing the waters? What can they do that invokes
(09:48):
an Article four response but not an Article five response.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Because it is worth mentioning here that Putin has been
a vocal critic, a long standing critic of NATO. He
repeatedly talks about, you know, NATO threatening Russia's own self determination,
and he has threatened Ukraine with you know, Ceasepine negotiations
that they cannot include NATO membership.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
He really doesn't want NATO or a NATO member on
his doorstep. And so if you think about the Russian
border as that doorstep, he wants NATO to be as
far away from that as.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Possible right, And so that's Poland. We had that happen,
and this pretty you know, widespread condemnation from across the
EU and NATO's strong language against Russia's actions. But a
few days later, something very similar took place in Romania,
which is a NATO member too.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Right, Yes, over the weekend, a Russian drone flew ten
kilometers into Romanian territory, hung around in the airspace for
about fifty minutes, and this time it was Romanian and
German fighter jets that tracked it but didn't shoot it down,
And that's because they were worried about the collateral damage
that falling drones may cause on civilian community below in Romania.
(11:02):
Now Romania is a NATO country, So that's the airspace
of two NATO countries violated in seven days.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Okay, so a lot that's been going on. But Russia's
invasion of Ukraine was several years ago, now, twenty twenty two.
This conflict has been ongoing. Has this kind of thing
happened frequently over the course of that conflict? Are we
talking about a kind of new development entirely in the course.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Of this war. I think a lot of people are
trying to figure out in this conversation and whether this
is something they should sit up and take notice too,
because it's really different, and it's a bit of a
yes no answer, because since the invasion of Ukraine, NATO
says there's been over one hundred and fifty incidents of
what they call hybrid operations in NATO territory and that
(11:49):
has escalated in their frequency as the years have passed.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Okay, so I am not a military or geopolitical expert.
What is a hybrid operations?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Neither am I, but some really helpful resources on the
Internet were so hybrid operations are basically the hostile stuff
that falls short of actual war. So Russia can cause
damage still by these acts. It can still test NATO's
responses without knowing they're about to trigger Article five. So
we're talking here about cyber attacks on power grids, disinformation
(12:23):
being spread online, cutting Internet cables under the sea, and
they definitely all cause real problems, but they are tricky
to respond to with traditional military force. It's not the
kind of thing that an army can respond too quickly.
And so, as I said before, this idea that Russia's
trying to find where NATO's line is in terms of
(12:45):
evoking a response. It is the first time though that
drones in another country's airspace, let alone two other countries,
has happened in such a short period of time.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Right, So two breaches of NATO members airspace in one week.
NATO since you know, basically doubling down on its condemnation
against Russia for these aggressions. Let's say there is an
escalation here that Russia invades more airspace of more NATO members,
or it you know, goes back to Poland and Romania
(13:18):
and threatens them more extensively.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Or a drone actually lands in you know, exactly the
territory of another country.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Advice into a territory. What happens for NATO as a
body to take the conversation from Article four to Article.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Five, So they would sit down quite quickly and invoke
Article five. It would be the second occasion, as we've said,
since nineteen forty nine. And they need consensus, really, they
need all thirty two members to agree that a military
response is about to happen and what the nature of
that response would look like. And that's not something that
we should presume is going to be easy to achieve.
(13:56):
You have to remember that when the organization was established
back in the forty there were twelve. Now it's thirty two.
There are about four or five countries in Europe, including Ukraine,
who want entry into NATO, So it could get even bigger,
and I guess it theoretically means that any member could
actually block action, and that could get complicated. One point
(14:17):
to remember is the US and the US in all of.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
I was going to say, just because this is a
military pact, it's not a political pact per se, it
doesn't mean that all governments are aligned on the same agenda.
And you can't ignore the US in that conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
No, so the US are not for Ukraine being in NATO.
And the reason for that across many presidents, not just
President Trump, both Democrats and Republican is that they want
to avoid the situation where American troops and Russian troops
are facing off, because that scene is kind of the
worst case scenario, and so the fear there would be
that if Ukraine was in NATO and then Ukraine got hit,
(14:52):
the US would be obliged to go in and back
them up. That would lead to a direct confrontation.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, but NATO has gotten bigger. We had Sweden join.
Recently its membership has expanded. Finland as well joined, which
increased the kind of NATO land border around Russia. But
Ukraine obviously has the very real and live threat of
an ongoing conflict. As we speak, sam, where does this
(15:19):
leave us? Where do we go from here? What happens next?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Well, I think we have some answers, but then we
have some new questions. So the answer that we have
is that NATO are ready to work together, and we
saw that with some of the kind of combined fighter
jet operations that were scattering the drones and responding in lifetime,
Germany's being particularly present in those operations, same with the Netherlands,
(15:44):
and Russia learned then that just flying a drone over
those sorts of countries will lead to a response. So
they kind of tested the line and perhaps put their
toe a little bit over it in terms of a
non response. But the big question that is still there
is how many violations, even if they're smaller ones, we'd
actually count as an armed attack that requires Article five.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
When do you cross that line from hybrid operations to
accidental or posturing moments to an offensive.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
If it's two in a week, it's article four. You
know where is that line? Is it ten? Is it twenty?
Is it three? We don't really know. It's not our
job you and I to figure that one out. We'll
leave it to the pros. But it's definitely a heightened
temperature in that part of the world, more so than
it was seven days ago. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Fascinating stuff and as always, we will continue to keep
a close eye on this one and cover it over
on the Daily OL's feed as well as here on
the podcast. Thank you Sam for taking us through that.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Thanks Sam, and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
To today's episode, or thanks for watching if you're over
on our YouTube. We'll be back a little bit later
with your evening news headlines, but until then, have a
great day.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
My name is Lily Madden. I'm a proud Arunda Banjelung
Kalkadin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges that
this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl
people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate
island and nations. We pay our respects to the first
peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Already and this is the daily This is the Dailias.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to
the Daily OS. It's Wednesday, the seventeenth of September. I'm
Sam Kazlowski.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
In the past two weeks, both Poland and Romania have
reported Russian drones flying in their airspace. Importantly, NATO forces
shot down Russian aircraft for the first time in the
alliance's seventy five year history. Now both countries and neighbors
of Ukraine, which continues to face Russian air strikes and
ground offensives as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues.
(00:44):
But there's a key difference between an attack on Ukraine
and an attack on Poland or Romania, and that's NATO.
On today's podcast, we're going to look at what makes
Russian activity in Poland and Romania so different, the idea
of collective defense and some of the broader implications here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Sam, this is a really interesting topic that we're chatting
through today and I'm really keen to learn more. But
before we get into the kind of specifics of what's
happened in the past week over countries like Romania and Poland.
I think we need to break down a bit more
about NATO to understand what it is and how it
actually functions.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So here's where my mind went with this question that
I knew was going to come. Because this is an
important part is we could do it as a straight
politics explain now, but we could also do it like
we're at school, because we always say that these world
leaders are kind of like kids fighting in the playground.
So let's go through it in a school metaphor. Okay, okay. So, NATO,
(01:46):
which is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a military
alliance of thirty two European and North American countries. It
was founded just after World War Two and originally designed
to counter the Soviet threat during the Cold War. Now,
in the playground, if you and your thirty one other
friends make a promise to always stick up for each
(02:07):
other against bullies, no matter who that bully was, they
basically went a bit further and promised that if someone
picks on one of them, all the others will help
protect them. Okay, Now, one important thing to remember here
is that Ukraine is not a member of NATO. It's
not in that list of thirty.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Two, Ukraine goes to a different school.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It goes to a different school. It's been actually requesting
to join for a long time now. Instead, NATO classifies
Ukraine as a NATO partner country, which basically means they're
friends with the group in the playground. But if there's
only one seat left at the back of the bus,
a NATO member country is going to get it over Ukraine,
but they'll kind of go into bat for each other.
(02:47):
As a general principle, Okay, got it.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
So the core kind of principle of NATO, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization is that an attack on one ally
is an attack on all a thirty two person or party,
friendship or alliance. That's a lot of people. They've got
to be some rules around making this work, right.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, And that's the Treaty of NATO, And we refer
to the parts of that treaty as articles. And the
two articles to really pay attention to today are articles
four and five. So Article four is like when one
friend thinks they're getting bullied or something worrying happens to
them and they tell their friends, Hey, I think we
need to talk about this. So it's when one country
says to all the others, I'm worried about my safety.
(03:29):
Can we just sit down and have a discussion about
what to do? Yep? Article five is the actual promise
to help. That's like saying, in the playground, someone has
hit me, so we're all going to come and help
you out now, Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
So Article four is more about maybe the perceived threat
or increased aggressions, whereas Article five is about this has
literally happened. There has been a breach of one ally,
and therefore now we are all in it.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah. And the really confusing part though, is what it
means and what help means. So Article five says that
each country will help by quote taking such action as
it deems necessary. That basically means each country decides for
itself what kind of support it provides. So it doesn't
mean that all thirty two countries go to war. Some
(04:18):
might send troops, others might offer money or diplomatic backing.
It really depends on each country's own decision making. And
so I guess in the playground it would be you
could go and tell the teacher, or you could get
directly involved in the fight.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Okay. So Article five, then it seems kind of almost
deliberately vague in its wording to give each country their
own scope to determine their response. Has it actually ever
been used? Has Article five ever been triggered by a
breach of a NATO member?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
So only once, and that's remarkable, since nineteen forty nine,
and that one time was straight after nine to eleven.
So the US, who is a member of NATO, they
didn't actually even ask for it. NATO's Secretary General suggested
it as a show of solidarity after the attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the response
involved NATO's surveillance planes patrolling US territory and NATO ships
(05:15):
standing by for deployment in the Mediterranean, there's the closest
body of water to Afghanistan. But NATO didn't actually participate
in the Afghanistan invasion itself, and that's because the US
preferred to work with individual countries like Australia rather than
dealing with this whole alliance and this whole body.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Okay, fascinating, So it sounds more like in that instance
that the NATO alliance was kind of posturing its power,
this sort of aloof presence of you know, we have
these ships we have these planes we're contributing to surveillance,
but from.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
A distance exactly, and there hasn't been besides that, another
example for us to point to to see a variation
in that response.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Okay, but then in terms of Article four, which speaks
to the perception of a threat or an escalating threat,
that has been invoked much more recently, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well a couple of days ago, and it was invoked
by Poland after Poland alleged Russian drones violated its airspace.
It's significant to invoke Article four, but it's definitely not
a dramatic escalation. Any NATO member can invoke Article four
if they think their security is threatened. And interestingly, when
I was looking into what that actually looks like, NATO
(06:30):
countries meet regularly anyway, so this was kind of an
agenda item to their regular meeting of we need to
talk about this, and I think it went right up
the top of the agenda, right. But it's been used
eight times before, so Turkia has used it several times
over Syria, and eight NATO countries used it together when
Russia invaded Ukraine back in twenty twenty two. Now, Article
(06:52):
four doesn't mean that any country actually has to do anything.
It's just formal talks about a growing threat.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Okay, so a little more frequently used that article five,
but still only eight times since nineteen thirty nine. It's significant.
But let's now get into sam what has actually happened
over the past week. Now we have all this knowledge,
we understand the playground politics. Nice walk me through it.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
So we go to September nine, last week. That was
when Russia launched a massive drone attack on Ukraine, and
nineteen Russian drones ended up flying into Polish airspace. Poland
and Ukraine share of border. Poland immediately shut down four
major airports in the country and scrambled their fighter jets.
And this became NATO's real first test of working together
(07:39):
to shoot down enemy aircraft. So Polish F sixteens fighter jets,
they teamed up with Dutch F thirty fives and they
were backed up by Italian and German forces.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's quite a big response.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, it was short and sharp because by the morning
of September ten, NATO forces had shot down four of
the drones. There were no other drones in the airspace.
The rest of them either crashed or were found scattered
across Polish territory.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
I remember when that new story broke last week and
was kind of splashed all over the TVs and new sites,
and it felt a little bit scary straightaway, like, oh,
my god, is Russia attacking Poland? But then Russia came
out and kind of said, oh, these were drones that
strayed into Polish territory.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, Well, the Foreign Minister said these were groundless accusations,
they had no interest in any escalation, and the Defense
Ministry even made the point that its drones couldn't actually
reach Poland because it was too far. That was all
pretty easily debunked. Investigators found that the crash drones had
been fitted with extra fuel tanks specifically for the further distance,
(08:45):
and the wreckage had identifying features that directly tied the
drones to Russia's military.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
All right, So analysts then suggesting that rather than this
kind of accidental straying into Polish territory, it might have
been a lot more of a posturing by Russia. Is
that when Poland then decided to invoke Article four.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, it was only a couple of hours after the
drones were in the air. So the Polish PM said
this brought Poland quote the closest we have been to
open conflicts since World War II. NATO's boss said this
wasn't an isolated incident, and the EU called it the
most serious European airspace violation by Russia since its war
(09:27):
with Ukraine began. And so late last week NATO held
talks under Article four at its headquarters in Belgium. And
I think another way to frame that posturing idea that
you're talking about is it sounds like what a lot
of the response is centered around. Is this idea of
Russia testing the waters? What can they do that invokes
(09:48):
an Article four response but not an Article five response.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Because it is worth mentioning here that Putin has been
a vocal critic, a long standing critic of NATO. He
repeatedly talks about, you know, NATO threatening Russia's own self determination,
and he has threatened Ukraine with you know, Ceasepine negotiations
that they cannot include NATO membership.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
He really doesn't want NATO or a NATO member on
his doorstep. And so if you think about the Russian
border as that doorstep, he wants NATO to be as
far away from that as.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Possible right, And so that's Poland. We had that happen,
and this pretty you know, widespread condemnation from across the
EU and NATO's strong language against Russia's actions. But a
few days later, something very similar took place in Romania,
which is a NATO member too.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Right, Yes, over the weekend, a Russian drone flew ten
kilometers into Romanian territory, hung around in the airspace for
about fifty minutes, and this time it was Romanian and
German fighter jets that tracked it but didn't shoot it down,
And that's because they were worried about the collateral damage
that falling drones may cause on civilian community below in Romania.
(11:02):
Now Romania is a NATO country, So that's the airspace
of two NATO countries violated in seven days.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Okay, so a lot that's been going on. But Russia's
invasion of Ukraine was several years ago, now, twenty twenty two.
This conflict has been ongoing. Has this kind of thing
happened frequently over the course of that conflict? Are we
talking about a kind of new development entirely in the course.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Of this war. I think a lot of people are
trying to figure out in this conversation and whether this
is something they should sit up and take notice too,
because it's really different, and it's a bit of a
yes no answer, because since the invasion of Ukraine, NATO
says there's been over one hundred and fifty incidents of
what they call hybrid operations in NATO territory and that
(11:49):
has escalated in their frequency as the years have passed.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Okay, so I am not a military or geopolitical expert.
What is a hybrid operations?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Neither am I, but some really helpful resources on the
Internet were so hybrid operations are basically the hostile stuff
that falls short of actual war. So Russia can cause
damage still by these acts. It can still test NATO's
responses without knowing they're about to trigger Article five. So
we're talking here about cyber attacks on power grids, disinformation
(12:23):
being spread online, cutting Internet cables under the sea, and
they definitely all cause real problems, but they are tricky
to respond to with traditional military force. It's not the
kind of thing that an army can respond too quickly.
And so, as I said before, this idea that Russia's
trying to find where NATO's line is in terms of
(12:45):
evoking a response. It is the first time though that
drones in another country's airspace, let alone two other countries,
has happened in such a short period of time.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Right, So two breaches of NATO members airspace in one week.
NATO since you know, basically doubling down on its condemnation
against Russia for these aggressions. Let's say there is an
escalation here that Russia invades more airspace of more NATO members,
or it you know, goes back to Poland and Romania
(13:18):
and threatens them more extensively.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Or a drone actually lands in you know, exactly the
territory of another country.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Advice into a territory. What happens for NATO as a
body to take the conversation from Article four to Article.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Five, So they would sit down quite quickly and invoke
Article five. It would be the second occasion, as we've said,
since nineteen forty nine. And they need consensus, really, they
need all thirty two members to agree that a military
response is about to happen and what the nature of
that response would look like. And that's not something that
we should presume is going to be easy to achieve.
(13:56):
You have to remember that when the organization was established
back in the forty there were twelve. Now it's thirty two.
There are about four or five countries in Europe, including Ukraine,
who want entry into NATO, So it could get even bigger,
and I guess it theoretically means that any member could
actually block action, and that could get complicated. One point
(14:17):
to remember is the US and the US in all of.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
I was going to say, just because this is a
military pact, it's not a political pact per se, it
doesn't mean that all governments are aligned on the same agenda.
And you can't ignore the US in that conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
No, so the US are not for Ukraine being in NATO.
And the reason for that across many presidents, not just
President Trump, both Democrats and Republican is that they want
to avoid the situation where American troops and Russian troops
are facing off, because that scene is kind of the
worst case scenario, and so the fear there would be
that if Ukraine was in NATO and then Ukraine got hit,
(14:52):
the US would be obliged to go in and back
them up. That would lead to a direct confrontation.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, but NATO has gotten bigger. We had Sweden join.
Recently its membership has expanded. Finland as well joined, which
increased the kind of NATO land border around Russia. But
Ukraine obviously has the very real and live threat of
an ongoing conflict. As we speak, sam, where does this
(15:19):
leave us? Where do we go from here? What happens next?
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Well, I think we have some answers, but then we
have some new questions. So the answer that we have
is that NATO are ready to work together, and we
saw that with some of the kind of combined fighter
jet operations that were scattering the drones and responding in lifetime,
Germany's being particularly present in those operations, same with the Netherlands,
(15:44):
and Russia learned then that just flying a drone over
those sorts of countries will lead to a response. So
they kind of tested the line and perhaps put their
toe a little bit over it in terms of a
non response. But the big question that is still there
is how many violations, even if they're smaller ones, we'd
actually count as an armed attack that requires Article five.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
When do you cross that line from hybrid operations to
accidental or posturing moments to an offensive.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
If it's two in a week, it's article four. You
know where is that line? Is it ten? Is it twenty?
Is it three? We don't really know. It's not our
job you and I to figure that one out. We'll
leave it to the pros. But it's definitely a heightened
temperature in that part of the world, more so than
it was seven days ago. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Fascinating stuff and as always, we will continue to keep
a close eye on this one and cover it over
on the Daily OL's feed as well as here on
the podcast. Thank you Sam for taking us through that.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Thanks Sam, and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
To today's episode, or thanks for watching if you're over
on our YouTube. We'll be back a little bit later
with your evening news headlines, but until then, have a
great day.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
My name is Lily Madden. I'm a proud Arunda Banjelung
Kalkadin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges that
this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl
people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate
island and nations. We pay our respects to the first
peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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