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I think sending cruise missiles into Russian drone factories would be a proportionate response to their drone attack on Poland last night, and would make it unlikely Russia would attack NATO with drones again.

If we brush it off at no big deal they will attack again and escalate further.

My suggestion FPT was to bomb the Kerch Bridge, but taking out the Shahed factory also works.

For sh!ts and giggles, get Trump to fly a fly a B-2 bomber over the top of Moscow, and have it take some photos of the Kremlin to send to Putin. We know their air defences are shot, and the same aircraft got into and out of Iran a couple of months back before their (Russian-made) radars even knew it was there.

Not sure you've quite appreciated which side Trump is on, yet.

So Putin has concluded (correctly) that he's faced with the weakest most naive and clueless American president in history and is acting accordingly. Dangerous times.

It's not just about Trump. It's also that European leaders are scared to act without American support.

We can't afford to let this be about Trump. Europe has to determine its own fate.

A bit of bellicose ranting on here and nobody wants to go where that might end up.

I'm happy to concede Russia might not have the control over its drones we imagine and while Belarus might have no objections, Poland has quite rightly chosen to defend its airspace.

I doubt it's any kind of serious "test", more logistical bumbling and technological over-reach in Moscow. Had Polish planes shot down drones over Ukraine, that would be different - Ukrainian anti-drone technology is doing no more than the Poles have done.

This conflict has seen the unprecdented use of drones in warfare and as with all new battlefield technologies, they don't always work.

Once again, we can rely on the media (both old school and social) to create a mountain out of a molehill and a crisis out of a small drama.

What an utter fool you are.

Russia does everything it does - not just last night, but all of the political interference in western democracies, the attacks on Ukraine, Georgia etc - and you accuse *us* of being bellicose.

I sometimes wonder what Russia would have to do before some idiots say: "Okay, Putin's gone a little too far..."

Well, he could steal 100k children and have them brought up as Russians. Nope, tried that one. He could use deadly poisons in public places in the UK at great risk to our public. Nope, done that too. He could murder many people who have displeased him in some way by chucking them out of windows. Nope, already done that. he could launch by far the largest war in Europe since WW2 resulting in over 1m deaths. No, apparently that is not enough either. He could fire drones at a NATO country. Decision on that is pending.

As I have said otherwise we do not want to go to war and should not be looking to escalate matters with missile attacks. But neither can we fail to respond firmly.

Russia escalates all the effing time, and we twiddle our thumbs. This state of affairs cannot continue forever.

So Putin has concluded (correctly) that he's faced with the weakest most naive and clueless American president in history and is acting accordingly. Dangerous times.

It's not just about Trump. It's also that European leaders are scared to act without American support.

We can't afford to let this be about Trump. Europe has to determine its own fate.

A bit of bellicose ranting on here and nobody wants to go where that might end up.

I'm happy to concede Russia might not have the control over its drones we imagine and while Belarus might have no objections, Poland has quite rightly chosen to defend its airspace.

I doubt it's any kind of serious "test", more logistical bumbling and technological over-reach in Moscow. Had Polish planes shot down drones over Ukraine, that would be different - Ukrainian anti-drone technology is doing no more than the Poles have done.

This conflict has seen the unprecdented use of drones in warfare and as with all new battlefield technologies, they don't always work.

Once again, we can rely on the media (both old school and social) to create a mountain out of a molehill and a crisis out of a small drama.

What an utter fool you are.

Russia does everything it does - not just last night, but all of the political interference in western democracies, the attacks on Ukraine, Georgia etc - and you accuse *us* of being bellicose.

I sometimes wonder what Russia would have to do before some idiots say: "Okay, Putin's gone a little too far..."

A hell of a lot more than flying a few drones over Poland. A 100 division armoured invasion towards Warsaw would do it but are we seeing that? No.

Yet there are people on here openly advocating some sort of retaliatory strike into Russia - seriously?

And you accuse ME of ridiculing the term "beliicose".

Look at everything Russia has been doing - and not just in Ukraine.

And when that 100 divisions head towards Warsaw, you'd just be saying: "Well, that's Poland fucked. There's nothing we can do..."

Our attitude towards Putin over the last near-two decades - since Georgia in 2008 - is one of utter appeasement.

Another worrying thing about the drone incident is that we were using F35s to shoot down cheap drones.
And we didn't even manage to shoot them all down.

If another European country were facing the kind of mass attacks that Ukraine faces, that simply isn't sustainable for much more than a couple of weeks.

In a world without the US element of the NATO guarantee, what, in our current capacity, is to prevent Russia threatening or blackmailing some of the smaller European states ?
It's not as though international norms will do that.

This is what I keep thinking - what is the point of NATO article 5 if America are no longer underwriting it?

In fact what is NATO without America?

NATO without America is still the collective self-defence of dozens of democracies that would mostly struggle to defend themselves individually.

In some ways NATO is even more important without America.

I think sending cruise missiles into Russian drone factories would be a proportionate response to their drone attack on Poland last night, and would make it unlikely Russia would attack NATO with drones again.

If we brush it off at no big deal they will attack again and escalate further.

I think a direct missile attack on Russia would be a massive escalation.

Something like a massive cyberattack perhaps more likely, and perhaps some mysterious explosions.

A direct attack would be an escalation (attack rather than flying some drones past). But if our Ukrainian friends were to somehow gain the kit and intel to take out facilities supporting the nightly Russian attacks on their country, that would seem proportionate. They would, afterall, only be acting in response to direct attacks.

One of the Russian drones was nearly 300km into Poland. This is a change in behaviour by Russia. It's not the previous thing where drones would dip into NATO airspace to bypass Ukrainian air defences.

Russia are testing NATO's response. If NATO does not push back firmly enough then Russia will take further steps, with the aim of destroying weapon supplies in Poland bound for Ukraine and creating fear in European civilians to erode support for Ukraine.

If this isn't a "Fuck Around and Find Out" moment for Russia then it will only get worse.

.

So Putin has concluded (correctly) that he's faced with the weakest most naive and clueless American president in history and is acting accordingly. Dangerous times.

It's not just about Trump. It's also that European leaders are scared to act without American support.

We can't afford to let this be about Trump. Europe has to determine its own fate.

A bit of bellicose ranting on here and nobody wants to go where that might end up.

I'm happy to concede Russia might not have the control over its drones we imagine and while Belarus might have no objections, Poland has quite rightly chosen to defend its airspace.

I doubt it's any kind of serious "test", more logistical bumbling and technological over-reach in Moscow. Had Polish planes shot down drones over Ukraine, that would be different - Ukrainian anti-drone technology is doing no more than the Poles have done.

This conflict has seen the unprecdented use of drones in warfare and as with all new battlefield technologies, they don't always work.

Once again, we can rely on the media (both old school and social) to create a mountain out of a molehill and a crisis out of a small drama.

Frankly that's spin attempting to minimise what was very likely intentional.
Russia has been sending its drones over NATO airspace in a regular basis, though up until now, not deep into it. This time, is was several hundred kilometres. The likelihood of its being accidental on so many occasions is pretty small.

We've been turning a blind eye to this stuff, and if we continue to do so, it's likely to get worse.

I agree that direct attack on Russia in response would be risky, and unnecessary. Supplying Ukraine with greater capabilities to defeat the unprovoked Russian invasion would not be either of those things.