A dangerous new reality is taking hold in Europe - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Polish President Donald Tusk said there was a "real risk" Moscow's drones could fall in NATO territory.

One after the other they lined up to speak: national leaders warning of increasing imminent danger to their countries.

World leaders spent this week bemoaning the big challenges facing the world in speeches to the United Nations General Assembly.

But the more extraordinary line up of warnings has been coming from Europe over the past week.

Last weekend, France, the Netherlands, Finland, Lithuania, and Switzerland all individually warned their citizens of increased threats from Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned of Russian threats to European infrastructure. (Reuters/Mike Segar)

This followed Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, citing intelligence assessments, telling the Polish parliament last week that Russia could launch "hybrid drone and missile strikes" against Poland and other NATO countries supporting Ukraine, while portraying them as accidental.

Such attacks could form part of a Russian effort to test NATO's resolve, he said, and cast doubt on whether the alliance would invoke Article 5, under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all.

"These possibilities have been discussed for some time, but the information is now highly consistent and, unfortunately, convincing," he added.

"I want to present the public with the most likely scenario for the next few months, because it is one that envisages serious events and requires focus, seriousness and the mental readiness to face difficult tests," he said.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, followed by calling the leaders of France's political parties — and 2027 presidential candidates — to an emergency briefing at the Elysee Palace to discuss Ukraine, Iran and the growing energy crisis.

He called Tusk's warnings "sound and well-documented" as he announced a new critical infrastructure protection plan.

Guillaume Lacroix, leader of the Radical Party of the Left, left the meeting saying: "At the age of 50, I have rarely felt such vertigo".

The concern is that Russia may be planning to target critical infrastructure, as well as greater cyber interference, and drones over NATO airspace.   (AP: Darko Vojinovic)

Then, on Thursday, the Danish government's defence intelligence service released an assessment that concluded that Russia would increase its threats to NATO nations, "with greater consequences for the targeted countries than in the past" of hybrid war and sabotage.

Underlying all these assessments of changing threats are not just warnings of greater cyber interference, or the occasional drone over NATO airspace.

The concern is that Russia may be planning to target critical infrastructure as it concentrates more on civilian targets in countries supporting Ukraine.

Several railway lines in the Netherlands and France have recently been sabotaged, for example, with at least one causing many injuries. There have been suspicious fires near explosive manufacturing plants.

Le Monde reported this week that ''more and more experts argue that it is time to abandon the term 'hybrid warfare' and simply call it war".

It is not that European leaders are worried about the threat of an imminent land invasion. It's more the spectre of finding themselves in the same situation as the Gulf countries that have been enduring months of Iranian missile and drone attacks on military and civilian targets as the stalemate between Iran and the US continues.

The European warnings came as the far right, pro-Russian Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party made more gains in state elections in Germany last weekend and the support for the centre right party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz collapsed.

Merz's leadership of the country was left on life support amid agonising over how he could be removed (apparently not as easy as it is in Australia).

In the meantime, there is a sense of lame duck around German politics which is just what Europe doesn't need from its biggest economy just now.

The AfD is pushing for Germany to buy more oil and gas from Russia ahead of an expected cold winter — and generally become more friendly.

Given the German industrial base is undergoing its biggest transformations in a century — from car manufacturing to weapons and defence material — it's hardly surprising that some of its neighbours are watching developments with alarm.

However, it turns out that the AfD is not the only group wanting to buy Russian oil.

The Financial Times reported this week that the US government and Gulf power brokers with ties to the Trump family are backing a bid for the international assets of the Russian oil company Lukoil — put up for sale after it was hit with US sanctions last year.

It turns out that the AfD is not the only group wanting to buy Russian oil. (Reuters/Ramil Sitdikov)

Lukoil's international assets were originally due to be sold to the US private equity group Carlyle. But that deal "has stalled in Washington awaiting final US approval".

"Lukoil's overseas assets, valued at $US20 billion ($28 billion) when they were written off in March, include oil and gas fields from central Asia to Mexico, thousands of petrol stations and a large European refining portfolio," the Financial Times reported.

"The sale of the assets presents a rare opportunity to snap up more than 3 billion barrels of proven and probable reserves, as well as some of Bulgaria and Romania's biggest refineries."

The proposal "would put the US government in the unusual position of simultaneously bidding for the assets while another part of the administration decides their fate," the Financial Times noted with some understatement.

"The proposal raises the question of whether Carlyle would be disadvantaged if pitted against a consortium involving the US government and investors with ties to the administration, in a decision made by the White House. One person familiar with the process said: 'Yes, there is that concern'."

The Trump family's business interests continue to plough on apace, it seems, even as President Donald Trump's power base seemed to be diminishing in inverse proportion to his boasts at the UN General Assembly.

"I have a big decision to make,″ Trump had told the UN on Tuesday.

To make a deal with Iran, or "annihilate the Islamic republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again".

If only the threat was unique enough to be truly, truly shocking.

Yet few other world leaders gave it much credence. It was striking that in the addresses of others, the US/Israeli war on Iran seemed to feature relatively little in speeches, except perhaps from the Gulf states, with more (rhetorical) focus notably on Israel and its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

Trump's speech seemed particularly directed at his ebbing political support in the US, ahead of mid-term elections.

If only Trump's threat during his UN speech to "annihilate" Iran was unique enough to be truly, truly shocking. (Reuters: Mike Segar)

He boasted he was "reasserting American power" and the country's "unmatched military might": boasts that sounded particularly hollow after a weekend in which he had been building up to join the attack on the Houthis in Yemen, only to pull out at the last moment, reportedly among concerns from military advisers about the perilous state of US weapons stocks.

Despite almost criminal overuse of the words "pomp, and pageantry and red carpet", the media coverage of the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping was all framed in terms of the Chinese leader's better tactical hand on AI and other issues.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was also using the platform of the UN to appeal to a domestic audience back home ahead of an imminent election, attacking the many detractors who had used the same podium this week to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza.

For the second year in a row, he faced a walkout of delegates from more than 70 countries.

"Shame on you," he declared to all those he said were spreading lies about Israel.

Earlier in the week, Macron had used notably similar language about the world's failure to act on Gaza, after a dozen countries — including France and Australia — last year used the same forum to formally recognise Palestine.

"What credibility do we have if we continue to remain inactive in the face of Gaza?" he said

"Must we stand by and watch this spectacle that shames us all? Never!"

Netanyahu attended the meeting despite an International Criminal Court warrant calling for his arrest, while the Trump administration denied a visa for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Despite leader after leader stepping forward to speak about Gaza this week, there was no more action from the UN on the issue.

Laura Tingle is the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.