The downing by Poland of unmanned aircraft that violated its airspace during Russia’s wide air strike in Ukraine on Tuesday night, marks a worrying development of the Kremlin war, and has sounded alarm in Europe.

This is because if it is confirmed that the unmanned aircraft that violated the Poland’s airspace, which were rejected by Poland, are Russian, it is essentially the first military involvement of a NATO country and even within its airspace with Russia.

An evolution that could mean the involvement of the alliance in the Ukraine War, as Warsaw described the violation of a “act of attack” and under Article 5 of NATO, the attack on a Member State of the Alliance is considered an attack on all other Member States.

Although it is not the first time that Russian drones are said to have passed into Poland’s airspace, yesterday’s incident is of concern because this time they did not just enter the Polish airspace but arrived deep into the country to close Warsaw airport.

Also, the Polish Armed Forces rejected them.

A former US official, speaking to the BBC, estimated that the incident is a Kremlin and Vladimir Putin test for the “Nato reaction”.

“It is difficult to imagine that the latest invasion of Russian unmanned aircraft into Polish airspace was a mistake,” said Jim Townsend, former Deputy Deputy Minister of Defense of the United States.

“An unmanned aircraft is wrong, multiple unmanned aircraft are not wrong,” he told the BBC newsday.

“It takes more time for Poland to see the findings and see what its views are,” he noted.

“But this is probably a test – it’s a test in which NATO has to answer,” he adds.

Townsend described it as positive that Poland and NATO seem to have control of the situation. “They have been identified by Polish radars and NATO has been mobilized. Now the political side of NATO is alert to make sure that the alliance’s response is the right one. “