Police and military police secure parts of a damaged UAV shot down by Polish authorities at a site in Wohyn, Poland, Wednesday. (AP Photo)

WOHYN, Poland (AP) — Multiple Russian drones crossed into Poland in what European officials described Wednesday as a deliberate provocation, causing NATO to send fighter jets to shoot them down. A NATO spokesman said it was the first time the alliance confronted a potential threat in its airspace.

The incursion, which occurred during a wave of strikes by the Kremlin on Ukraine, and the NATO response swiftly raised fears that the war could spill over — a fear that has been growing in Europe as Russia steps up its attacks and peace efforts go nowhere.

Poland requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the drone incursion. South Korea’s U.N. Mission, which holds the council presidency this month, said the time was being discussed.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it did not target Poland, while Belarus, a close ally of Moscow, said it tracked some drones that “lost their course” because they were jammed.

However, several European leaders said they believed the incursion amounted to an intentional expansion of Russia’s assault against Ukraine.

“Russia’s war is escalating, not ending,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels. “What (Russian President Vladimir) Putin wants to do is to test us. What happened in Poland is a game changer,” and it should result in stronger sanctions.

Polish airspace has been violated many times since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but never on this scale in Poland or anywhere else in NATO territory.

Poland said some of the drones came from Belarus, where Russian and Belarusian troops have begun gathering for war games scheduled to start Friday.

It was not immediately clear how many drones were involved. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament 19 violations were recorded over seven hours, but he said information was still being gathered. Polish authorities said nine crash sites were found, with some of them hundreds of kilometers from the border.

“There are definitely no grounds to suspect that this was a course correction mistake or the like,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told parliament. “These drones were very clearly put on this course deliberately.”

Dutch fighter jets came to Poland’s aid and intercepted some drones. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski later thanked the Dutch government “for the magnificent performance of Dutch pilots in neutralizing” the drones.

NATO met to discuss the incident, which came three days after Russia’s largest aerial attack on Ukraine since the war began.

Mark Lyall Grant, U.K. national security adviser from 2015 to 2017, said the incursion was an obvious escalation of Russia’s war in Ukraine, but there was not yet enough evidence to say it was an attack on a NATO member.

But many European leaders expressed deep concern, including those in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia that are the NATO members most nervous about Russian aggression.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it an “extremely dangerous precedent for Europe” and called for Russia to “feel the consequences.”

“Moscow always tests the limits of what is possible and, if it does not encounter a strong response, remains at a new level of escalation,” he said.