729 Russian projectiles test NATO’s border

Russia fired 73 missiles and 656 drones at Ukraine on the night of June 1-2, one of the war's largest single strikes (UNN, Chronicle.lu/Reuters). At least 11 people died and over 100 were wounded across Kyiv, Dnipro, and Kharkiv. Poland scrambled fighter jets, activated ground-based air defences, and shut its border airspace. Four days earlier, a Russian drone had struck an apartment block in Galați, Romania, injuring two civilians in the first such casualties on NATO soil. The alliance saw everything. It could engage almost nothing.

Seeing Everything, Shooting Nothing

Poland's Operational Command confirmed the scramble ended at 03:35 with no airspace violation, crediting NATO Air Command, France, and the Netherlands for support (Fakt.pl). This was Poland's sixth defensive activation in twelve months. Each response has been faster and involved more allies. What looked like a crisis in 2024 is becoming routine.

The Galați incident on May 29 showed why faster detection changes nothing if you cannot fire. Romania tracked the drone throughout its four-minute flight over Romanian territory. F-16s were airborne with weapons-release authority. Interception still failed. Firing risked collateral damage over a populated area. Peacetime legal rules barred shooting into Ukrainian airspace. Ground-based counter-drone systems lacked clearance for urban engagement (Mediafax). Defence Minister Radu Miruță said the systems were "designed before 2023, prior to large-scale drone warfare."

Romania's foreign minister Oana Țoiu publicly said the Galați strike "fits the category justifying" Article 4 (NATO's mechanism for requesting alliance consultations when a member feels threatened). Romania then chose not to invoke it. According to Euronews.ro, sources close to the presidency say Washington recommended against invocation, offering capability transfers instead. Romania expelled Russia's ambassador and ordered the Constanța consulate closed within 30 days.

The Political Fracture

The barrage landed on an alliance already split over how to handle Russian strikes near its borders. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania's presidents issued a joint statement on May 21 demanding NATO shift from Air Policing (monitoring and identification) to Air Defence (authorised engagement) along the eastern flank (Aerotime). Estonia's foreign minister Kaja Tsahkna warned that "every gap, every softening response becomes an invitation for the next strike."

Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz signalled solidarity with Romania but proposed a special EU association status for Ukraine, a political gesture with no bearing on the intercept gap along the eastern flank. Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico pulled in the opposite direction, calling for "immediate EU-Russia dialogue" (Noviny.sk, Novinky.cz). His own foreign minister Juraj Blanár condemned the strikes in sharper terms. Slovakia's president called for strengthening NATO's flank without endorsing Fico's dialogue push.

Moscow's Framing, NATO's Deadline

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declared the war had entered "a completely different paradigm," pointing to a May 22 Ukrainian drone strike on a vocational college in occupied Starobelsk that killed 21 people (Devdiscourse/Reuters, RIA Novosti). The UN Security Council says it cannot verify that toll because Russia blocks access to occupied territory. Peskov added the war "could be over by the end of the day" if Ukraine withdrew from Russian-claimed regions.

The "new paradigm" follows the Kremlin's documented habit of attaching escalatory language to specific incidents to justify pre-planned operations, the same sequence after the Kerch Bridge attack in 2022 and Ukraine's use of ATACMS in 2024.

Romania signed €5.6 billion in SAFE programme contracts (EU-funded defence procurement) for anti-drone systems on May 29 (Digi24). Delivery begins in 2027. The NATO summit in Ankara on July 7-8 is where the Baltic demand for a formal Air Defence posture will be decided. Until then, the eastern flank sits between watching and engaging, and each drone incident that passes without a collective response raises the threshold for the next.