Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, on June 22, 2025. (Contributor / Getty Images)
Russia’s “unprecedented” drone attack on Poland last week has once again thrust a curious-sounding geopolitical phrase into the spotlight — salami slicing tactics.
Salami slicing tactics is a term commonly used in geopolitics and military strategy to describe a method of achieving a larger objective through a series of small, incremental actions — each carefully calibrated to avoid provoking a strong or immediate response.
“They’re poking,” former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Kyiv Independent two days after the drone attack, adding: “But that’s what they do.”
The Kremlin applied this tactic to gain a foothold in Ukraine. The illegal annexation of Crimea and the occupation of large parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in 2014 elicited only a muted response from Ukraine’s Western allies, effectively signaling to Russia that further escalation would likely go unchecked.
Eight years later, that signal culminated in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But Ukraine is not the only case — Russia has employed a similar mix of disinformation campaigns, diplomatic pressure, and military force in other countries with Russian-speaking populations, often successfully neutralizing local resistance with little lasting pushback.
Now, a NATO member is in its crosshairs.
“There does not seem to be a strong enough consensus among NATO members about how to respond to Russia’s lower-level actions, which could be interpreted in several ways,” Jenny Mathers, Russia expert and lecturer in International Politics at Aberystwyth University, told the Kyiv Independent.
“No one in NATO is eager to take up arms directly against Russia, and the fear is that retaliatory action will end up there,” she added.
How Russia perfected salami slicing tactics
Russia is not the only country to use salami slicing tactics, but over the past few decades, with the outbreak of wars in Moldova, Abkhazia, the North Caucasus region, and Georgia, the Kremlin has elevated these efforts, applying them more systematically and with greater strategic impact.
During the war between Moldova and the Russian-controlled Moldovan region of Transnistria in 1990–1992, Russia did not officially take direct part, yet it deployed regular units of its 14th Army and supported separatist forces in pressuring the Moldovan government into signing a peace agreement that granted Transnistria the right to “decide its own fate.”
Although still officially part of Moldova, Transnistria is today heavily dependent on Moscow, which continues to provide it with military, economic, political, and diplomatic support.
A boy holds a Russian flag in Tiraspol, Moldova, on Sept. 1, 2015. (Sander de Wilde/Corbis via Getty Images)Cadets march on Republic Day in Tiraspol, the capital of the Russian-controlled Moldovan region of Transnistria, on Sept. 2, 2023. (Peter Dench/Getty Images)
A similar outcome unfolded in Abkhazia, which became a de facto Russian puppet state following the war’s end in 1993.
The war began when the Abkhaz political elite demanded independence, a move rejected by the Georgian leadership. Although Russia officially maintained a position of neutrality, it provided military equipment and troops to support the Abkhaz side.
According to Stephen Hall, assistant Professor in Russian and post-Soviet politics at the University of Bath, Russia has repeatedly used the justification of protecting Russian citizens and Russian speakers to legitimize its invasions, including in Ukraine, after enforcing passportization in occupied territories.
“Apart from sending strongly worded letters and announcements to Russian consulates or embassy staff to say ‘don’t do this again’ there has not been much.”
The war in Abkhazia later escalated into the 2008 war in Georgia, when Russia launched an open military assault on the country, which was actively pursuing NATO membership at the time. As a result, Russia solidified its control over the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Meanwhile, the unilateral ceasefire declared by then-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Aug. 12, 2008, brokered through French mediation, was ultimately disregarded by the Kremlin.
Russian soldiers move across Igoeti, Georgia, on Aug. 22, 2008, following the launch of a war against the country. (Uriel Sinai / Getty Images)Georgians gather for a rally in response to the Russian war against Georgia in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Sept. 1, 2008. (Cliff Volpe/Getty Images)
Hall noted that weak responses from the West allowed Russia to disregard peace agreements and ceasefire calls, and to continue its occupation largely unchecked.
“I don’t know whether the West has been particularly adept at reacting to Russia’s salami tactics in the past,” Hall said.
“Apart from sending strongly worded letters and announcements to Russian consulates or embassy staff to say ‘don’t do this again’ there has not been much.”
Mathers echoed Hall’s stance, pointing to 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and fueled the war in eastern Ukraine, as a prime example of Moscow’s salami-slicing strategy. The Kremlin secured limited but strategic gains at minimal cost.
At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied any involvement, and no country was willing to risk a direct confrontation or military escalation with Russia. But that dynamic has since begun to shift.
“In 2022, it was not an attempt to slice the salami but devour it entirely that prompted shock, outrage, and a willingness to respond more decisively,” Mathers said.
Who could be Russia’s next target?
After occupying nearly 20% of Ukraine’s territory as of August 2025, Russia launched drones 21 drones into Polish airspace, an act Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said was deliberate.
One of the primary targets was reportedly the airport in Rzeszow, a critical logistics hub for Western aid flowing into Ukraine.
Following the incident on Sept. 10, Warsaw invoked Article 4 of the NATO Treaty to initiate consultations with its allies, but Article 5, NATO’s cornerstone of collective defense in the face of an attack, remains off the table for now.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk delivers a speech confirming that Polish forces shot down Russian drones that violated the country’s airspace in Warsaw, Poland, on Sept. 10, 2025. (Polish Prime Minister’s Office/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Dmitry Gorenburg, a senior research scientist at the non-profit research organization CNA, said that even the current limited response is a meaningful signal, showing that the alliance has not ignored Russia’s actions and serving as a warning against further escalation.
“Whether or not Russia accepts this signal is another matter,” Gorenburg added.
According to Gorenburg, Russia will likely limit its actions to avoid large-scale escalation, but a rise in sabotage operations, increased interference in European politics, and more violations of NATO borders are also expected.
Hall, meanwhile, does not rule out that Russia’s next focus could be the Baltic states, particularly areas in Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia that were once part of the Russian Empire and the Russian-led Soviet Union.
“Putin does not need to send waves of tanks and troops toward Tallinn,” Hall said. “He just needs to prove that Article 5 does not work.”
Johnson said that a stronger and more decisive international response towards Ukraine decades ago could have prevented not only drone attacks on Poland, but the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“It shows to me how vastly better it would have been in the early 2000s to have got Ukraine into NATO, because I don’t believe this war would ever have happened,” he said.
“And I think Ukraine would have been properly protected, like Poland is today.”
NATO’s response to Russian drones reveals glaring issue with Europe’s air defenses
NATO’s downing of Russian drones in Polish airspace this week was touted as a major success by the military alliance, after it mustered an international force using some of the most advanced technology in the world to defend its borders. But the incident has actually highlighted a major flaw in NATO and Europe’s defenses — they don’t have an effective way to shoot down Russia’s cheap, mass produced drones. “Given the increasing mass deployment of loitering munitions and relatively inexpensive
