Thanks to the norms of inter-state combat which have governed much of history, we’ve long been conditioned to think of war and peace in binary terms. But what’s happening on Nato’s east shows us that it is in fact a spectrum, with Poland caught right in the gray zone at its midpoint.

This weekend, for the first time since the Second World War, a deliberate explosion damaged a railway line connecting Warsaw to Lublin in what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called an “unprecedented act of sabotage”. Although Polish authorities have not yet named the culprit, referring instead to an unnamed enemy, there is little doubt that Russian services were behind the blast. After all, the damaged rail line serves as a key pathway for shipping aid to Ukraine, and Russia has sent recruits to gather intelligence on Polish rail hubs near military bases and to disrupt train services using radio networks in the recent past.

Polish services have been arresting arsonists, spies, and would-be saboteurs tied to Russia since the start of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, including as recently as last month. But this railway blast is different, marking the first time that Russia has struck Poland’s strategic infrastructure in a direct and kinetic manner. Coming just two months after Russia sent a swarm of drones into Polish airspace, it confirms that the Kremlin is deliberately and methodically escalating its gray-zone actions against Nato.

This is not necessarily to achieve any tactical or logistical goals, but instead to expand the field of battle westward from Ukraine in a way that extracts costs from the alliance without triggering a declaration of Nato’s Article 5. While many in the West continue to wave off the danger Moscow poses by pointing to the incredibly high price of a full-fledged war between Nato and Russia, this railway explosion offers a glimpse into a near-future status quo that is far more immediate and nearly as dangerous: an anxious state between war and peace in which violence is pervasive without becoming existential.

Already, the events of the last two months hardly make Europe look like a continent at peace. Suspected or confirmed Russian aerial assets have violated Nato airspace from Belgium to Estonia; Russian agents have carried out acts of arson and sabotage in Poland; and, in a dramatic but under-reported move, Moscow deployed irregular soldiers, or “little green men”, along an Estonian road that briefly veers into Russian territory. Just yesterday, Romania had to evacuate an entire village in response to Russia’s bombardment of a natural gas tanker over the border in a Ukrainian port.

This is what military analysts have started to call Phase Zero — a concerted operation by the Kremlin to lay the groundwork in Europe for a potential future military confrontation with Nato. Whether this effort leads to a full-scale, continent-spanning war between the alliance and Russia remains to be seen; but even in the interim, Phase Zero operations would be a powerful cudgel against Nato if allowed to reach full maturity. Attacks against member states’ energy pipelines, refineries, and even military infrastructure would become the norm, as might violent provocations on their eastern borders. Contrary to reporting at the time, Polish generals have recently confirmed that several of the drones Russia sent into Polish airspace were indeed armed with explosives, making Russian drone strikes on Nato military bases entirely conceivable in the near future.

While Russia’s provocations may have once been dismissible as mere scare tactics, the recent explosion in Poland dispels that myth, and makes it abundantly clear that Russia aims to employ very real weapons to strike at the alliance’s soft underbelly. Even though Phase Zero actions have been taking place throughout Europe, Russia has clearly saved its most serious shadow attacks for Nato’s frontline states, and as its gray-zone campaign continues to escalate, states such as Poland, Estonia, and Romania are destined to bear the brunt of its assault.

The railway blast may not have been a Rubicon-crossing moment, but it was a dramatic red flag that showed Europe exactly where its future lies. Full-scale war or not, in the words of German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, “last summer may have been our last in peace.”

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Michal Kranz is a freelance journalist reporting on politics, society and defence in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He runs The Eastern Flank, a Substack newsletter focused on Eastern European geopolitics.

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