Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged European nations to increase investment in defense, saying the continent is not prepared for the current situation. Tusk made the remarks during a recent interview with various European newspapers. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but war is no longer just a concept from the past,” he said before referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “It’s real and it began over two years ago.” Russia has intensified air strikes against its neighbor. Recently, Russian missiles briefly entered Polish airspace during an attack. That prompted Warsaw to put its forces on heightened alert. Moscow has escalated its attacks in recent days, launching several missile barrages on the capital Kiev, and hitting energy infrastructure across the country in apparent retaliation for recent Ukrainian aerial attacks on the Russian border region of Belgorod. On Friday, Italian news agency AGI reported that Italian fighter jets at a Polish military base in Malbork intercepted two Russian spy aircraft in the Baltic Sea. The Russian aircraft were not authorized to be in NATO airspace, the report said. No one was harmed, and the Russian planes did not have “hostile intentions.” Tusk called for urgent assistance for Ukraine to defend itself and urged more cooperation between nations. “We are living in the most critical moment since the end of the second world war,” he said. “I know it sounds devastating, especially to people of the younger generation, but we have to mentally prepare for the arrival of a new era. The prewar era.” Tusk also called out Russian President Vladimir Putin for attempting to link the terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall to Ukraine without evidence. “Evidently Putin feels the need to justify increasingly violent attacks on civil targets in Ukraine,” Tusk said.