Russia tested NATO’s airspace 18 times in 2025 alone – a 200% surge that signals a dangerous shift

Police inspect damage to a house struck by debris from a shot down Russian drone in the village of Wyryki-Wola, eastern Poland, on Sept. 10, 2025. Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images

Russian aircraft, drones and missiles have violated NATO airspace dozens of times since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

Individually, many of these incidents appear minor: a drone crash here, a brief fighter incursion there, a missile discovered only after the fact.