{"id":1002,"date":"2026-05-23T14:41:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabnewsmonitor.com\/2026\/05\/23\/nato-must-show-its-teeth-to-russia-czech-president\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T14:41:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:41:23","slug":"nato-must-show-its-teeth-to-russia-czech-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/?p=1002","title":{"rendered":"NATO must \u2018show its teeth\u2019 to Russia \u2013 Czech president"},"content":{"rendered":"

Petr Pavel has accused Moscow of provocations following recent Ukrainian drone incursions into NATO airspace<\/strong><\/p>\n

Czech President Petr Pavel has urged NATO to \u201cshow its teeth\u201d<\/em> in response to what he described as Russian \u201cprovocations\u201d<\/em> on the bloc\u2019s eastern flank.<\/p>\n

Pavel\u2019s remarks follow a series of Ukrainian drone incursions into NATO airspace in Europe. Since mid-March, long-range UAVs have repeatedly crossed Baltic and Nordic airspace en route to targets in northwestern Russia, particularly oil facilities in Leningrad Region. The incursions prompted fighter jet deployments, and some drones crashed inside NATO states, causing damage.<\/p>\n

Moscow has accused European NATO members of quietly allowing Kiev to use their airspace for attacks on Russian territory, but Western officials deny this, instead blaming Russia for the incursions and claiming that Russian electronic warfare systems may have redirected the drones to stray into NATO airspace.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Guardian published Friday, Pavel echoed the accusations, claiming that Russia was intentionally staging \u201cprovocations\u201d<\/em> operating just below the threshold that would trigger NATO\u2019s collective defense clause, Article 5. He also claimed that Russian military officials openly mock the bloc\u2019s indecision during such incidents, and called for \u201cdecisive enough, potentially even asymmetric\u201d<\/em> responses to counter Moscow\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"Slovak
Ukrainian drones could trigger NATO-Russia war \u2013 Fico<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cRussia, unfortunately, does not understand nice language. They mostly understand the language of power, ideally accompanied with action,\u201d<\/em> he claimed. \u201cWhen I asked them why they do these provocative actions in the air… their answer was \u2018because we can\u2019. That\u2019s exactly the kind of behavior we allowed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Citing earlier Western allegations of Russian \u201cprovocations\u201d<\/em> in the Black and Baltic Seas \u2013 such as fighter jet intercepts<\/a>\u00a0and purported airspace violations <\/a>\u2013 Pavel suggested that NATO should consider shooting down \u201ceither an unmanned or manned\u201d<\/em> Russian aircraft if spotted near its borders. Moscow has denied<\/a>\u00a0the accusations, insisting its patrols occur in international airspace and are a necessary response to Western reconnaissance flights near Russian borders.<\/p>\n

Pavel also proposed \u201cpotentially asymmetric\u201d<\/em> measures against Moscow, including disrupting internet access, targeting satellites, or cutting Russian banks off from the global financial system, measures he said \u201care not killing people, but are sensitive enough to make Russia understand this is not the way they should go.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"NATO
NATO should \u2018direct\u2019 Ukrainian drones against Russia \u2013 Swedish PM<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Pavel\u2019s position echoes that of several other NATO countries. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Thursday that NATO states should actually help Kiev \u201cdirect\u201d<\/em> drone attacks \u201cin the right directions.\u201d<\/em> Latvian and Estonian officials defended Ukrainian incursions by saying that Kiev \u201chas every right to defend itself.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Finland, however, rebuked Kiev over the breaches of its airspace, while Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico urged renewed dialogue with Moscow, warning of potential Ukrainian drone provocations involving NATO territory that he said could trigger direct conflict between Russia and the bloc.<\/p>\n

Multiple Western officials have claimed that Moscow could test the alliance through provocations and hybrid operations, or eventually attack European states after the Ukraine conflict ends. Citing the purported threat, European NATO members last year pledged to raise military spending to 5% of GDP and launched rearmament initiatives such as ReArm Europe.<\/p>\n

Moscow, however, dismissed claims that it poses a threat to Europe as baseless \u201cnonsense\u201d<\/em> and condemned what it calls reckless EU militarization. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently accused European \u201cwarmongers\u201d<\/em> of portraying Russia as a \u201cmodel external enemy\u201d<\/em> to distract from domestic problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Petr Pavel has accused Moscow of provocations following recent Ukrainian drone incursions into NATO airspace…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}