Alarms bells sounded this week in Europe after NATO jets scrambled to intercept an unprecedented Russian drone incursion in Poland. Now there is fresh unease on NATO’s eastern flank, as Russia and Belarus kick off major military drills to test the readiness of their armed forces.

Denmark, France and Germany have joined a new mission to bolster the military alliance's eastern flank after Russian drones flew into Poland on Wednesday.

The incursion of a significant number of Russian drones into Poland is a dramatic and unsettling escalation of the war in Ukraine.

WOHYN, Poland (AP) — Multiple Russian drones crossed into Poland in what European officials described Wednesday as a deliberate provocation, causing NATO to send fighter jets to shoot them down. A NATO spokesman said it was the first time the alliance confronted a potential threat in its airspace.

A continent already on edge over the Ukraine war sees a Russian challenge to NATO readiness and to an America that wants to disengage from Europe.

NATO announced plans to beef up the defence of Europe's eastern flank on Friday, two days after Poland shot down drones that had violated its airspace in the first known action of its kind by a member of the Western alliance during Russia's war in Ukraine.

Jen Psaki explains that after NATO members in Europe responded with alarm to an incursion of Russian drones into Poland, risking a drastic escalation, Donald Trump seemed more inclined to make excuses for Vladimir Putin than to stand with allies in discouraging Russian belligerence.