Soon after Poland reported airspace violations, Ukraine warned of an unfolding Russian "disinformation campaign" to pin the blame on Kyiv.
That is exactly the narrative that has dominated pro-Kremlin media in recent days.
Out of the 19 incursions in the early hours of Wednesday, three or four drones were shot down by Poland and its allies.
That marked the first time ever that a NATO member has opened fire during the Russian war in Ukraine.
Most of the incursion was conducted with Gerbera drones. Polish prosecutors said yesterday they were dummies with no explosives discovered in them, likely used to decoy air defence systems.
The Kremlin has denied it had anything to do with the incident and accused Poland of "escalating" and "spreading myths".
Writing for one of the country's most read tabloids, Komsomolskaya Pravda, war analyst Aleksander Grishin claimed that there are "hundreds or thousands of Gerbera drones in Ukraine" - due to Russia’s daily attacks, he omits to mention - suggesting that Ukraine could reuse them.
Others, like war correspondent Aleksandr Kotz in his article for the same paper, suggested that Ukraine and Poland were in collusion, with Ukrainians allegedly handing the drones over to the Polish side "to brandish at a press conference".
He also claimed that the duct tape visible on some of the photos of the discovered drones is the sign that they were reassembled, because Russia, according to Mr Kotz, does not "reuse drones".
Polish military commentator Jarosław Wolski believes that the drones were "undoubtedly" Russian.
According to his assessment on X, two types of drones violated Poland’s airspace - "Gerbera drones that entered our airspace in rather random directions deep into Poland and Shahed drones (also known as Geran in Russia) that followed a planned north-south route towards targets in Ukraine."
In Argumenty i Fakty, another popular Russian newspaper, political analyst Aleksandr Zimovskiy called the incident a "failed attempt to drag NATO" into the conflict, while another columnist in the same outlet accused Warsaw of trying to inflict more sanctions on Russia.
Polish F-16 fighter jets, Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS and German Patriot air defence systems were used in the operation to down the drones.
NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte praised the alliance’s response as "quick and skillful", while Poland’s defence minister announced yesterday that the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, France and the UK are all accelerating or enhancing their military support and presence in Poland in reaction to the incident.
Unsurprisingly, Russian commentators disagree, branding the response as "weak" and disproportionately expensive at the same time.
Columnist for Russia’s oldest news agency, RIA Novosti, Aleksandr Nosovich, called the incident "a litmus test for NATO's readiness for a major war with Russia", claiming that the alliance did not pass.
He argued that the allies are "not ready and not willing" to fight but will "throw other nations into war".
"The Republics in the Caucasus, Moldova, Poland, the Baltic States and even Scandinavia" are "in the risk zone" according to the commentator, who claims that the allies would not defend them.
The list looks rather like a menu of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s imperial and military ambitions - the ones he has not been able to hide well in his years in power.
Russian media also mocked the cost of Poland’s and NATO’s response.
Using prison jargon, the headline in tabloid "Moskovskiy Komsomoletz" reads that Poland got "conned out of tens of millions", in which it claims that "such war economy is in Russia’s favour".
Polish military admitted that using fighter jets and Patriot systems to down drones is an expensive response.
An average Gerbera would not cost more than $100,000, while they were downed by rockets worth more than a million dollars.
For the Chief of Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, the cost of the operation did not matter.
General Wiesław Kukuła told channel TVN24 that "a Polish life has no price" and vowed to "use a missile a hundred times more expensive" if that saves "the life of even one Pole".
In the longer term, Poland is looking into more effective ways to repel such attacks in the future and will reportedly seek training in Ukraine.
The core message across all media reactions in Russia appears to serve one goal: to portray Kyiv, Warsaw, Brussels and other European capitals as plotting against each other.
Sowing suspicion, mistrust and doubt is one of the Kremlin’s classic propaganda tools.
An environment where no one can be trusted is fertile ground for further information attacks.
On the eve of Russia’s joint military drills with Belarus along NATO’s eastern borders, the Kremlin’s Dmitry Peskov insisted that the exercise is "not directed against anyone".
The war games, which start today, are a grim reminder of similar drills in February 2022.
Back then, the Kremlin called warnings of a possible full-scale invasion of Ukraine "hysterical".
We all know what happened next.
