The Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk has said that the current confrontation between Europe and Russia is a "new type of war".
Mr Tusk was speaking this morning at the opening of the Warsaw Security Forum, an annual conference on transatlantic and Central and Eastern Europe defence issues.
"Today, we are wiser in our thinking about safety and security. We understand more what a real threat is in the 21st century," said Mr Tusk.
"It is war. The biggest and most important task for European leaders today is to make Western societies aware that this is war. We didn't want it. It’s a new type of war. But this is war."
This year’s conference is being attended by Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha, French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot, Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, a number of European defence ministers, as well as top military brass from European armed forces.
European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice and the Rule-of-Law Michael McGrath will also take part in a panel discussion later today focused on reinforcing democracy across Europe.
The representation of so many high-level officials from European governments comes less than three weeks after Poland said Russian drones violated its territory, and 10 days after Estonia said three Russian fighter jets had violated its airspace.
Speaking about the war in Ukraine, Mr Tusk said: "This war is also our war. We often hear here in Warsaw and any other places in the world, 'it’s not our war'.
"We need to realise it’s not about loving Ukraine. It’s not about good or bad experiences that involve Ukraine. It’s a question about security."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke via online video link to conference attendees.
He began his speech with the words of the 20th century Polish writer Jerzy Giedroyc, that "there can be no free Poland, without a free Ukraine".
Mr Zelensky spent a good part of his speech congratulating Moldova’s pro-EU party, PAS, on winning yesterday’s parliamentary election.
"Russia failed to destabilise Moldova," said Mr Zelensky, a reference to accusations made by Moldovan government officials that Russia ran a disinformation campaign ahead of the election to discredit the European Union.
However, Mr Zelensky’s big ask to delegates was for European governments to work with Ukraine to build a common defence shield against Russian drone threats.
"We are ready to share our know-how and expertise," said Mr Zelensky.
"Ukraine proposes to build a reliable shield against Russian drone threats. If we act together, we will have enough."
Mr Zelensky claimed that Russia had used tankers in the Baltic Sea to launch drones in northern Europe, a reference to drone sightings near Copenhagen last week that forced airports in the region to halt flights for a number of hours.
Denmark’s government called last week's incident a "hybrid attack" but has not linked it to Moscow.
Russia has denied any involvement in last week’s drone sightings over Copenhagen and said the incident was an attempt to draw NATO countries into direct conflict with Russia.
