2025-09-11 17:34
publication
2025-09-11 17:34
Katarzyna Zysk, a professor at the University of Norwegian Armed Forces, assessed in an interview with PAP that Russia's decision to conduct a provocation towards Poland could have contributed to the policy of US President Donald Trump. She also pointed to the Far North of Europe as a possible place of the next similar actions of the Kremlin.
In the expert's opinion, Trump's attitude from the beginning of the second term as the head of state (from January this year) is heading towards weakening the presence of the US in Europe. This is to be evidenced by Washington's attitude towards the Baltic Security Initiative program, which was to strengthen the defense potential of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, but Trump's administration did not ask Congress to extend this initiative to 2026. For profit, there are also clear factual arrangements from the meeting of the US President with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage in Alaska in mid -August.
– The end of the support program for countries bordering Russia is a very clear and dangerous signal that the Kremlin certainly noted. NATO's strength has always taken on its deterrence potential, and Wednesday's operation of the Russians (in Poland) showed that Russia is ready to take the risk of testing the alliance's determination to defend – admitted prof. Profit.
According to PAP interlocutor, Russia is not yet ready for a direct conflict with the North Atlantic Pact, but it will undoubtedly use any chance to prove its weakness, indecision and decreasing credibility and ability to deter. Cases of hybrid surgery, testing how far Russia can move the “red line”, after which NATO's answer will be inevitable, in the assessment of profit – more and more frequent. As she emphasized, there were already many examples of the invadles of Russian forces into airspace or other Kremlin provocations in Finland and other countries of the Baltic region.
One of the regions, which, although they do not have the highest priority in the Kremlin, but are still exposed to Moscow operations, is, in the opinion of an expert, the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard. PAP interlocutor noticed that the rhetoric of the Russians about the legal status of this territory changed since the start of full -size aggression in Ukraine in 2022. The tension is much smaller there than in the Baltic Sea area, but it increases noticeably. Profit assessed that the attack on Svalbard, similar to the airspace carried out in Polish, is unlikely, but provocations using e.g. fishing boats or formally other civil buildings may happen more often there.
– Norway has a long history of Russian attempts at such penetration, both on Svalbard and in the border Finnmark. Recently, we have seen the growing intensity of the Kremlin's operational activity in these regions – the profit admitted.
At the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, at least a dozen drones violated the Polish airspace. Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that they were Russian machines. The Minister of National Defense Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said that the drones that could be a threat were shot down.
From Oslo Mieszko Czarnecki (PAP)
cmm/ Szm/ LM/
