Zelenskyy warns Europe of Putin’s expansionist ambition, says latest incursion testing Nato’s defences

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, will expand the ongoing war in Ukraine by attacking another European nation. While speaking in Kyiv, following the meeting with US President Donald Trump, Zelenskyy maintained that Russia’s latest incursion into the airspaces of European nations was its way of testing Nato’s defences.

The Ukrainian leader warned that Russia is preparing for a bigger conflict. “Putin will not wait to finish his war in Ukraine. He will open up some other direction. Nobody knows where. He wants that,” the Ukrainian leader averred.

Zelenskyy maintained that the Kremlin was delibrately checking Europe’s capacity to protect its skies, after drone sightings in Denmark, Poland and Romania and the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets. On Friday night and Saturday, more drones were spotted above the Danish military and on a Norwegian base, respectively.

Zelenskyy’s warning to the EU

The Ukrainian president noted that the EU governments were struggling to deal with this new and dangerous threat. Earlier this month, Ukraine claimed that it had spotted 92 drones flying towards Poland in a “choreographed” way. While the war-torn nation intercepted most of them, 19 crossed into the Polish airspace, and Poles were ultimately able to shoot down four of them.

“I am not comparing our forces. We are at war and they [Poland] are not,” he said. Zelenskyy maintained that representatives from several unnamed countries would travel to Ukraine to receive “practical training” in how to repel Russian aerial attacks. “We are ready to share our experience,” he added.

The latest warning from the Ukrainian leader came after he met with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting. After the meeting, the US president revealed that he believed Ukraine could win back all the territory it has lost since 2022, with the support of Europe and Nato.

Trump also noted that Russia’s economy was in big trouble and described its military as a “ paper tiger”. When asked about Trump’s change in stance, the Ukrainian leader said that he had briefed Trump about the “realities on the battlefield”.

Zelenskyy reportedly told Trump that Russia’s advances were often fleeting: “It’s not success. It’s a temporary presence.” The US president now has greater “faith” in Ukraine and has discovered that Russia treated him and everyone else with “disrespect”, Zelenskyy said. Ultimately, the Ukrainian leader made it clear that if the Kremlin tried to destroy the war-torn nation’s energy infrastructure again this winter, its own capital would experience retaliatory blackouts.