From the position of the victim: Poland asked to apply Article 4 of NATO
On Wednesday, September 10, the NATO Security Council, at the request of Poland, decided to apply Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty and began consultations. This was done against the background of a number of drones crossing Polish airspace. For more information about Article 4 of the NATO treaty, as well as when it was applied earlier, see the Izvestia article.
Application of NATO Article 4 on September 10, 2025: Drone incident
On Wednesday morning, September 10, reports began to arrive about drones in Poland. According to the country's Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, most of them allegedly came from Belarus. It was also reported that the UAVs were Russian, but the Polish authorities did not provide any evidence of this.
As a result of these events, NATO, at the request of Poland, activated Article 4 of the treaty and, as reported, began consultations.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry responded to reports of alleged Russian drones in Poland and said it was ready to hold consultations with its Polish counterparts.
According to the ministry, during a massive strike on the night of September 10, the Russian military hit the facilities of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex. The targets were factories in Vinnytsia, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnitsky and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.
The Ministry of Defense noted that targets for destruction in Poland were not planned.
"The maximum flight range of the Russian UAVs used in the strike, which allegedly crossed the border with Poland, does not exceed 700 km. Nevertheless, we are ready to hold consultations with the Polish Ministry of Defense on this topic," the ministry said in a statement.
Earlier, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Polish authorities had not received any requests for contacts with Moscow after reports of UAVs crossing the Polish border.
Andrei Ordash, Charge d'affaires of the Russian Federation in Warsaw, pointed out that the drones that appeared in Polish airspace were flying from Ukraine.
This is not the first time Warsaw has accused Moscow of violating its airspace without evidence. At the end of 2022, shells landed on the territory of Poland, near the border with Ukraine, killing two people. Then the Poles blamed Moscow for the incident, claiming that the weapons were Russian-made. Later, Andrzej Duda, who held the post of president at that time, nevertheless admitted that the missile was Ukrainian.
Article 4 of NATO: what does it mean
Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that the parties will consult with each other if one of the countries feels a threat to its territorial integrity, political independence or security.
It is important to note that this article of the NATO treaty is directly related to the following: Article 5 states that an armed attack on one or more countries of the Alliance will be considered as an attack on the entire bloc. Thus, NATO reserves the right to use all necessary measures to respond, including the use of armed forces.
Any NATO member State can refer to Article 4, then the Council members hold consultations, during which they must come to a decision that does not necessarily have to be of a military nature.
It is important to understand that the application of Article 4 of the treaty does not indicate the beginning of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. Boris Pervushin, an expert and lecturer at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, recalled this in an interview with TASS.
"This episode did not trigger any mechanism for automatically involving NATO in a direct conflict with Russia, but as an information channel for putting pressure on public opinion and EU budget decisions, this case works perfectly," he said.
The expert also added that drones without proof of origin are a "gray zone", the situation is limited to consultations and loud statements. It is important for Warsaw to show itself as a "victim" who keeps the situation under control. The situation may also become a justification for new EU military spending, and Kiev will be helped to involve NATO more in air defense.
As American political scientist Malek Dudakov wrote in his Telegram channel, "the feigned panic around the arrival of drones in Poland is turning into another attempt by European hawks to force Trump to pay attention to them." This is due to the upcoming US defense strategy for 2026, which may shift the Pentagon's focus from external to internal fronts. All this causes panic among representatives of the European establishment, who, according to the American expert, will not last long without the United States.
When was Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty applied
NATO was created 76 years ago, in 1949. To date, Article 4 has been applied seven times, all in the 21st century.:
— February 10, 2003, Turkey. At that time, the country officially asked for help and advice due to concerns about the armed conflict in neighboring Iraq.;
— June 22, 2012, Turkey. Ankara turned to the article again due to the fact that on that day, the Syrian armed forces shot down a Turkish fighter jet.;
— October 3, 2012, Turkey. The conflict with Syria escalated, and five Turkish civilians were killed by Syrian shells. Later, Ankara made a request to deploy Patriot missiles, to which NATO members agreed.;
— March 3, 2014, Poland. Warsaw applied the article due to the escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine.;
— July 26, 2015, Turkey. The reason was the increased frequency of terrorist attacks in the Middle East, one of which occurred on the border of Turkey and Syria, when 27 people were killed and about 100 injured.;
— February 28, 2020, Turkey. Ankara appealed to NATO over the death of Turkish soldiers in Idlib (Syria) after strikes by the Syrian army;
— February 24, 2022, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia. The countries turned to Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty after Russia launched a special operation in Ukraine.
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