Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, a key U.S. ally in NATO, issued a chilling warning Friday about war in Europe.
Tusk spoke about the Russia-Ukraine war in remarks to several European news publications. "I don't want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past. It's real, and it started over two years ago," he said in the remarks, which were reported by the BBC.
Tusk's remarks come just days after a Russian cruise missile fired toward western Ukraine entered Poland's airspace, according to Warsaw's military.
Tusk warned that the next two years of the Russia-Ukraine war would be crucial to Europe's future, describing the current era as "the most critical moment since the end of the Second World War."
"I know it sounds devastating, especially to people of the younger generation, but we have to mentally get used to the arrival of a new era. The prewar era," he said.
Newsweek reached out to NATO for comment via email.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine, launched in February 2022, has raised concerns about a broader conflict erupting in Europe. The Russia-Ukraine war significantly escalated tensions between Moscow and the rest of Europe, and most EU nations have sided with Kyiv. The West has provided the Ukrainians with crucial military and humanitarian aid that has prevented Russian forces from making substantial gains.
The war has mostly been confined to the eastern regions of Ukraine, such as the Donbas. Putin has said the invasion's aim was to "liberate" some of these areas from the Ukrainian government, but many observers see the war as an attempt to take control of all of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from the Ukrainians, a harbinger of the 2022 invasion.
The missile entering Polish airspace was only the latest incident to raise concerns about a broader conflict. "Among other things, Polish and allied aviation was activated," the Polish military said in a statement posted to social media. This "may result in increased noise levels, especially in the southeastern part of the country," Warsaw said in a separate post to X (formerly Twitter).
Concerns about the Ukrainian conflict spilling over into neighboring countries have drawn attention to NATO's Article 5, which states that an attack against one NATO member state, such as Poland, "is considered as an attack against all Allies."
This means that an attack against a NATO country would be expected to trigger a response from others, including military action.
Similar concerns arose earlier in March after a Russian missile struck only 500 feet from a convoy transporting the Greek prime minister and Ukraine's president.
On Thursday, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development in the Trump administration, said that Russia poses a "serious threat" to Eastern European members of NATO.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more
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