What the officials of information services say behind closed doors about the incursion of Russian drones into Poland. Moscow's smoke curtain or a mistake?

One week after NATO fighter jets were urgently lifted to break several Russian drones that have entered the Poland's airspace, American and Western intelligence services have not yet been able to say unequivocally if it was a navigation mistake or a deliberate attempt to test the aircraft. It writes CNN.

Western officials warn that, for whatever reason, the incident transmits a worrying signal: the Kremlin seems willing to risk more to cause NATO, even with the price of climbing.

“This does not mean that it is not dangerous,” said a high official of Western secret services. “Something has definitely changed in the way the Kremlin perceives risk tolerance regarding its targets.”

The technical analysis of the drones, the flight path and their characteristics, have not offered, so far, a clear image. The information obtained was contradictory and difficult to interpret.

Warsaw and Kiev claim that the incursion of Russian drones has been intended, and several European capitals share this evaluation. Instead, former US President Donald Trump suggested that “it could be a mistake,” a statement that brought him a sharp reply from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who said we “know” that the incursion was not a mistake.

There are no consensus in NATO

Inside NATO, the consensus is missing, CNN appreciates, after discussing 12 senior military officials from intelligence and diplomacy services in the American Congress and Western countries.

A high American military official estimated the chances that the probability of Moscow's drones had intentionally entered NATO's airspace at “50-50”. Others believe that Russia wanted to map the reaction of Polish defense, using including unarmed drones, a tactic common to get tired of Ukrainian air defenses, experts say.

For analysts, the major difficulty is the lack of clear information inside Russia, probably the most opaque target of the information community. This uncertainty forces NATO to decide how it reacts to an unprecedented episode, without really knowing what intentions Moscow had.

“We simply do not have enough information in one direction or another,” said another American source familiar with secret information.

Although the High Western official in the secret services said that the drone flight trajectory suggests that they were lost and tried to recover the GPS signal-which would mean that they were simply deviated from their course by the Ukrainian jam-other indicators can be interpreted in both directions.

And the large number of drones that diverted to Poland is not decisive at all, high external officials and analysts said, because the drones are often scheduled in the block and, in attacks of this extent, it is logical for 19 or 20 of them to encounter the electronic Ukrainian defense and to respond identically. Only in the last few weeks, there have been at least four Salve from Russia to Ukraine, who involved more than 400 projectiles in the simultaneous air, noted the High Western official from the intelligence services.

The Kremlin became more reckless

In private, some officials formed an opinion. The high-ranking Western official from the intelligence services told CNN that they “inclined” to an evaluation that the incident was unintentional, even though they condemned him as a worrying sign that the Kremlin became more reckless. The American source familiar with the information agreed.

However, another American military official and a congress official familiar with the information said the incident seems intentional.

Ukrainian officials contacted by CNN have acknowledged that Kiev uses the electronic war and the jam during the Russian air attacks, which can cause enemy drones to deviate from the scheduled course. Another Russian drone diverted to Romania one day after the incident in Poland. But a high official added that he “never attended such great deviations” in the over three years of war.

“This is the balance. Do we ignore this or do we consider it a significant escalation, in the sense that Russia is now directly testing the air defense of its potential opponents?” Said Samuel Beett, an expert in Russian military technology.

Although Ukrainian officials initially hoped that the incident would cause a strong reaction from Western allies, Kiev stressed that priority should be sending several air defense systems and ammunition.

The purpose of Russia

If the incursion was intended, said the Congress official familiar with the secret information, probably had several purposes: to test western defense to evaluate the reaction time, to find out more about how NATO responds, to map the routes used by the West to transport weapons to Ukraine and to identify future targets – and of course.

Russia could hope that evoking the spectrum of civil victims in a NATO country could create cracks in public support for the Ukraine war, noted the Western official in information services.

But even if it has been unintentional, said the high -ranking Western official in information services, the episode suggests that Russia is more willing to risk an accidental attack on NATO, or by negligent targeting, or by inappropriate defense against electronic war or something else. This increases the risk of a dangerous calculation error that could lead to a direct conflict.

“Whether it was intended or not, it is absolutely reckless, it is absolutely dangerous,” said NATO Secretary Mark Rutte, at the weekend, warning at the same time that the evaluation is still in progress.

But one of the causes for which Russia's intentions are so hard to decipher is that Moscow often engages in provocative actions, hidden behind a smoke curtain. In fact, the episode could have been conceived to seem accidentally, several external officials and experts said.

The Russian army said only that “there are no plans to attack goals on the territory of Poland.” Bendett noted that Russia's armed drones are equipped with military quality antennas and sensors, capable of counteract Ukraine's electronic war tactics, while the bait drones flew to Poland, equipped with GPS and other cheaper sensors, failed.

Appreciation of an expert in Russian military technique

Poland said that Belarus, from whose territory the drones were launched, also sent a warning that the drones diverted from the course were heading to its airspace.

Both aspects are the reason why the High Western official in the intelligence services believes that the incident was an accident.

“Usually, if the Russians intend something like this, they don't talk about it,” said this person.

But, of course, these two information could have been part of a camouflage strategy. Russia could have sought “a way to see what is happening in a way that could be easily withdrawn, rejected and to cause everyone to say,” It was not an intentional attack, “said Bendett-an incursion that was” intended to seem unintentional. “

“These are the logical and intellectual questions we all fight,” he said. “Many of NATO and Eastern Europe say that this was probably intended precisely because we would all say:” Well, an attack with 800 drones and 20 have deviated from the course? Yes, this is an acceptable error margin in such a big attack. “