The pledge follows accusations from Poland and Estonia that Russia had violated their airspace - claims that Moscow rejects as baseless. Earlier this month, Poland accused Russia of deliberately flying drones across its border from Belarus, prompting a joint NATO response. "The United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory," Waltz said, alleging that Russia either "wants to escalate and pull more countries" into the Ukraine conflict or is not fully controlling its forces. Russian Deputy Representative Dmitry Polyansky reiterated Moscow's denials and accused European NATO members of seeking to disrupt improving US-Russia ties since President Donald Trump took office in January. Polyansky accused European politicians of "whipping up anti-Russian hysteria" so that "European voters would not notice anything."