One year ago, pundits and the press were analyzing the performances of Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and former President and MAGA Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the first and only debate between the pair before the 2024 presidential election.
During that face-off, it was noted that Trump refused to answer if he wanted United States ally Ukraine to win the war Russia began by invading their neighbor.
Vice President Harris had no such issue, and emphasized the importance of Ukraine driving Russia back across their border in her answer.
She stated:
"Otherwise, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin would be sitting in [the Ukrainian capital of] Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe."
"Starting with Poland."
Addressing Trump, she added:
"And why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch?"
You can see the moment here:
One year later, early Wednesday morning, 19 Russian military drones entered Polish airspace. Four were shot down with the help of Poland's NATO allies.
Russia, of course, denied the scale and deliberate nature of the incursion.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski countered that there were no doubts about the incursion being intentional and called it an unprecedented attack on NATO and the European Union.
Minister Sikorski stated:
"In this case there were 19 breaches, and it simply defies imagination that it could be accidental."
"This is a threat not only to Poland, this new technology of the mass use of drones is a threat to all of the E.U. and nature, and we need to face it together."
As a result, Harris' 2024 warning of Putin's intentions to push as far as NATO, the EU, and the United States allows him to went viral across social media.
It was shared on Facebook with the caption:
"Kamala Harris warned that this would happen under Trump — destabilization, a weakened NATO, and a green light for Putin. Look around — it’s happening."
People noted how prescient—and presidential—Harris was.
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Fears that Putin could turn his sights on areas of Europe once under Soviet control—especially the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—have been present since Russia first illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
Those rumblings grew more prevalent after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The Russian incursion into Polish airspace is proof those fears—and Vice President Harris' warning—were warranted.
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