Two kilometers from the Polish border, a Russian drone struck a Ukrainian passenger train on September 14th — minutes after a diplomatic convoy carrying European officials had cleared the station. The precision of the timing was itself a message, and European leaders received it clearly: this was not merely an act of war against Ukraine, but an attempt to frighten the West into silence. In the hours that followed, the attack became less a military incident than a referendum on whether democratic alliances hold when tested at their edges.