A senior Russian security official has warned that Poland could face "annihilation" within two to three days in the event of an open conflict — the latest and most explicit threat Moscow has directed at a NATO member state since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. The warning, combined with near-daily drone incursions into Polish airspace and a stark alert from Warsaw about staged "accidental" strikes, has pushed Poland-Russia tensions to their most dangerous point of the war.
Patrushev's warning: "complete annihilation"
In an interview with the Russian state publication Argumenty i Fakty, senior Russian security official Nikolai Patrushev declared that Poland's existence could be swiftly wiped out if a direct conflict erupted, suggesting it would take Moscow only two to three days to do so. According to reports on the interview, Patrushev said Russia would deploy its entire military arsenal in such a scenario — a threat clearly designed to intimidate Warsaw and the alliance behind it.
The remarks followed comments by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski at a conference in Kyiv, where he stressed the importance of European air superiority and NATO's deterrence capabilities. Patrushev dismissed Sikorski's assessment as amateurish, while insisting — in the same breath — that Russia does not seek war with Europe. The contradiction is familiar: escalating rhetoric paired with denials of intent, a formula Moscow has used throughout the war.
It is worth noting that the annihilation claim comes from a single Russian-state source, and independent verification is impossible. What matters is the signal: Moscow wants NATO's eastern flank to believe resistance is futile.
Tusk warns of staged "accidental" strikes
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has treated the threat as real — and immediate. Addressing the Polish parliament, Tusk warned that, according to intelligence from NATO allies, Ukrainian services and the CIA, Russia is preparing hybrid drone and missile strikes against European countries supporting Ukraine, Poland among them. The attacks, he said, would be presented as accidents in order to paralyse the alliance's willingness to respond.
"There is a real risk that drones or other types of projectiles will enter the territory of one or several countries on the eastern flank and even cause destruction," Tusk told deputies. He said Russia is increasingly using jet-powered drones — faster, higher-flying, and harder for air defences to detect — and described the coming autumn and winter as the most critical moment of the war so far.
The warning was not abstract. As Tusk spoke, Russian strikes were landing in western Ukraine near the Yahodyn–Dorohusk border corridor, close enough that Polish fighters scrambled and the airports at Rzeszów and Lublin briefly halted traffic. A jet-powered drone came down about four kilometres inside Ukraine, according to Polish officers — a reminder that the border is already being tested.
Poland answers: air-raid sirens, a security council, and a push for US troops
Deputy Prime Minister Sikorski, speaking from New York during the UN General Assembly, described near-daily air-raid warnings across Poland caused by Russian drone incursions. "Historically, every time Russia conquered Ukraine, we were next," he warned, calling the war next door an existential threat to Poland.
Warsaw is responding with concrete moves. President Karol Nawrocki convened a security meeting with Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and General Wiesław Kukła, chief of the General Staff. Poland is also pressing Washington for a permanent US military base on its territory with up to 15,000 troops — a bid Sikorski framed as essential deterrence, even as US President Donald Trump looks to reduce America's footprint in Europe. "The eastern flank should be favoured, because that's where the threat is," Sikorski said.
What comes next
The pattern is clear. Moscow's threats against Poland — whether a drone that "accidentally" crosses the border, a hybrid strike dressed up as an error, or Patrushev's blunt promise of annihilation — are meant to fracture NATO's resolve without triggering Article 5. Warsaw's answer is to name the tactic publicly, prepare the population, and anchor itself more tightly to the United States.
For Ukraine, the stakes are direct: Poland is the warehouse, marshalling yard, and political amplifier of Western support for Kyiv. Russia knows that if it can intimidate Poland into hesitation, the flow of aid slows. That is precisely why the coming months, as Tusk warned, will be the war's most critical — and why NATO's eastern flank is no longer preparing for a hypothetical war, but for a hybrid one already underway.
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