WARSAW, Poland /TALLINN, Estonia – A solitary billboard hangs above Warsaw’s busy city centre. As commuters rush to catch their trains at the city’s main railway station nearby, the picture of a Polish soldier clasping hands with his American counterpart, almost in brotherhood, stares down at them.

Three words stand out in the middle of this billboard. Silni w sojuszu – Polish for “stronger in alliance” – extols the virtues of Poland’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or Nato.

Amid the hustle and bustle of everyday life in the Polish capital, the implications are not lost on people. The spectre of war now lurks on Poland’s door step – barely 200km away from Warsaw, to be precise – as the war in Ukraine has continued unabated since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the former Soviet state on Feb 24, 2022.

To the majority of the Polish and their European counterparts, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agenda in “reclaiming” Ukraine is motivated by Soviet imperialism. His goal is both to restore Russian influence, which has waned since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, and to halt Nato’s eastward expansion.

Yet, it is exactly Mr Putin’s vaulting ambition that has reinvigorated Nato 75 years after its founding.

“From the Polish perspective – and also many other countries in the eastern flank, like the Baltic states and also Romania – the war in Ukraine is… the main threat for Polish security, not in the short term, but in the long term,” Mr Damian Wnukowski, a senior analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, told The Straits Times.

“Even if Russia will not win in this war, we don’t know exactly what it means for Ukraine to win – or how to defeat Russia,” he added. “And also, what does it mean for Russia to be defeated? What are the conditions of the future peace?”

More than two years on, the numerous lingering unknowns heighten the uncertainties and the challenges of keeping up the fight.

From separated families to overstretched charities, private businesses and policymakers, this prolonged state of war is straining budgets and even diverting funds from social spending.

Instead, defence budgets across the European Union have spiked. Poland and Estonia have become the top two military spenders in Nato by percentage of gross domestic product, at 4.12 per cent and 3.43 per cent respectively, by the bloc’s estimates in June.

With Ukraine’s resistance seemingly faltering, as military losses take their toll, fears are growing that Mr Putin may well gain the upper hand.

Nato will confront questions of its future as the leaders of the bloc gather in Washington for a 75th anniversary summit from July 9 to 11.

Nato is a defence alliance founded in 1949 to provide collective security against the threat posed by the then Soviet Union. The grouping was founded with 12 countries, and membership has since swelled to 32 nations, comprising the United States, Canada and 30 European nations, with Finland and Sweden the newest joiners. Ukraine is in membership talks.

The upcoming Nato meeting will be closely watched for hints on how leaders will buttress European security at a time of growing political fissures.

Ukraine, Georgia and Bosnia are in talks to join the 32 Nato members

Many European nations have long capitalised on the so-called “peace dividend”, gained from reducing defence budgets and hardware after the end of the Cold War.

Underscoring the hitherto overconfidence in a constant US presence, Nato has only 5 per cent of the air defences it needs to protect the eastern flank, the Financial Times reported in May, citing the bloc’s internal calculations.

But fears are now rife that Donald Trump, if re-elected US president in November, may withhold funding for Ukraine or, worse, withdraw from Nato, as he has threatened before.

Even a victory for incumbent US President Joe Biden may not be reassuring. Partisan politics led to a seven-month delay of a US$61 billion (S$82.7 billion) Ukraine aid package, impeding Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

It is in this light that European nations are assuming greater responsibility. The US now identifies China as its biggest threat and is increasing its presence in the Indo-Pacific.

Polish State Secretary for Defence Pawel Zalewski (above) told ST: “Given the situation in the Indo-Pacific, the US will gradually decrease its engagement in Europe and it creates a situation where European countries will have to be more dependent on themselves.”

Europe is now playing catch-up through dramatic increases in defence expenditure.

Among the 30 Nato members on the continent, 22 will meet spending pledges of at least 2 per cent of GDP in 2024 – compared with nine members a year ago.

Meanwhile, Warsaw has also drawn up a 10 billion zloty (S$3.4 billion) East Shield scheme that, beyond conventional security measures like anti-tank defences, also fortifies borders with Russia as well as Belarus, a close Russia ally.

Mr Zalewski said the goal is to achieve “deterrence by denial” and show that not a single millimetre of Nato territory will be ceded without invoking the bloc’s Article 5.

This “one for all, all for one” clause provides that an armed attack on any Nato country will trigger the collective force of all member states.

Estonian Foreign Ministry secretary-general Jonatan Vseviov, however, admitted that Nato “has not been able to convincingly present a united front against the Russians”.

Inside the coalition, individual countries have different calculations and risk appetites towards Russia’s blackmail of a nuclear escalation of war, and have been slow to agree on the extent of military support for Ukraine.

In recent months, it has sometimes felt as though it has taken President Volodymyr Zelensky’s considerable powers of persuasion to keep his country front and centre for his allies.

Ukraine is expected to finally get its first shipment of US-made F-16 fighter jets from Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway in the coming months.

The US has also, only recently, allowed the use of American arms to strike inside Russia, though for the sole purpose of defending Kharkiv in the ongoing Russian offensive.

“If it’s wise now, then why was it not wise in February 2022?” Mr Vseviov said. “We’ve lost years – not just days and months – and, as a result, lives have been lost.”

Poland leads in hosting Ukrainians among countries in regional response plan by UN refugee agency UNHCR

Poland and Estonia took in many Ukrainian refugees when war broke out. Some have relocated to other parts of Europe and even Japan and the US.

Those who stayed, however, are rebuilding their lives and integrating into society.

Poland, which shares a 530km border with Ukraine on its east, was already home to two million Ukrainians before the war, and the number has risen to about 3.5 million today, according to the University of Warsaw’s Centre of Migration Research.

“Many Polish citizens see Ukrainians as suffering a war that could well happen to us,” centre director Pawel Kaczmarczyk said, describing the groundswell of support as a miracle. “We share the same enemy, and the Baltic states also see the same threat.”

In Estonia, which was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991, Ms Kaidi Ruusalepp (above), 48, took a Ukrainian family into her home.

The founder of fintech start-up Funderbeam, who lived in Singapore from 2017 to 2020, told ST: “They had a five-year-old boy who, in the first few weeks, was walking around the garden and trying to build bomb shelters out of wood and stones.”

This broke her heart. “I felt in a way guilty; that we are free, we don’t have a war, and this boy was trying to build us a bomb shelter.”

Stories of support, too, abound in Warsaw, where Ukrainian therapist Kateryna Horban and her teenage sister were taken in by a friend they had not seen in years.

The siblings fled to Warsaw in March 2022 at the behest of their parents. Their mother and grandparents stayed behind in their central Ukraine home of Kropyvnytskyi, while their father, who is 46, is fighting in the trenches.

The close-knit family keeps in touch through a video call to the front lines every day.

“I’ve asked him where he is, but he has never answered the question,” said Ms Horban, 23.

“We may all be smiling but, within, our souls are crying about the situation,” she said. “I just wish happiness not only for my family, but also my country.”

Ukrainian hotel administrator Natalie Yaschenko (above) was at Przemysl train station on day zero of her relocation to Poland on May 20.

She told ST she was once adamant about not leaving her home but decided enough was enough.

“I’m here to lead a normal, quiet life without having to worry about air-raid sirens or rockets falling,” said Ms Yaschenko, 39, before boarding a train to Warsaw.

Ms Yaschenko, though, may have to eventually move farther afield for normalcy.

Russia is openly preparing for a conflict with Nato, Dr Jakub Jakobowski of the Centre For Eastern Studies think-tank in Poland said, by “waiting for cracks to appear among the Western community”.

One way Moscow has been doing this, he said, is through grey zone tactics to unnerve people and undermine social cohesion.

These include disinformation campaigns and election interference, while ostensibly random crimes, such as arson attacks at warehouses or the smashing of car windows of politicians, have been blamed on Russian special forces.

In Warsaw, vandals scrawled messages in May criticising Mr Zelensky at the entrance of the Ukrainian House (above), which provides aid to refugees.

Estonia has described 2024 as the year of “strategic defence”, with Mr Vseviov stressing it is crucial that Ukraine and the West manage to end the year “without having either collapsed or changed course”.

But political upheaval is sweeping Europe as far-right, pro-Moscow groups are on the march, including in countries like Hungary, the Netherlands and Portugal.

In France, the far-right National Rally party is on course to dominate snap elections that will go into a second round on July 7, while Austria, likewise witnessing a resurgent far right, goes to the polls in September.

Nationalist sentiments have grown in tandem with persistent bread-and-butter concerns and an inward turn fostered by an exponential growth in migrants.

Europe’s politicians have accused Moscow of weaponising migration and using its mercenaries in Africa to support rogue governments in war, thus driving people out of the continent and into Europe.

While there is still broad support for Ukraine, patience is wearing thin for some.

A recent Pew survey showed that while nearly nine in 10 Polish adults say Nato membership is important for their country’s security, only 48 per cent of them are confident that President Zelensky is doing the right thing regarding global affairs in 2024 – a plunge of 22 percentage points from a similar survey conducted in 2023.

Earlier in 2024, Polish farmers in nationwide protests used tractors to blockade border crossings and highways.

The disruption of Ukrainian exports via the Black Sea had led to a massive flow of grain across Poland’s border, driving down wheat prices and hurting farmers.

Police used tear gas to break up protests and deter demonstrators from thronging Parliament.

The mood has also soured in border towns like Medyka, where people from Ukraine enter Poland – and which ST visited in May during a trip that the Polish government helped to facilitate.

The checkpoint here was crossed on foot by at least 20,000 Ukrainians a day in the immediate wake of the invasion. Now, border crossings have slowed to a trickle (below).

Mr Jurek Lenczakowski, 53, and Ms Kamila Kosmider, 19, who work at one of several kiosks selling SIM cards metres away from the checkpoint, said they have had enough of the situation.

Ms Kosmider said their initial pity has turned into disgust at “exploitative” practices as Ukrainians come and go on short-term visits.

She pointed to about a dozen people speaking Ukrainian who were selling smuggled contraband, like vodka and cigarettes, just metres away from her shop.

“You give them your finger, they take the entire hand,” Ms Kosmider said.

She claimed that some Ukrainian mothers are leeching off Poland’s social welfare by enrolling in the system despite being “tourists” who shuttle back and forth.

Mr Lenczakowski also pointed to history for his antipathy: In 1943, Ukrainian insurgent fighters led by nationalist leader Stepan Bandera killed more than 100,000 Poles in the region.

Warsaw calls it a genocide but Kyiv canonises Bandera as a symbol of fearlessness, and these differing interpretations of history have time and again become a political issue.

“They should apologise for our suffering but have never done that. Instead, they glorify him,” Mr Lenczakowski said.

In Poland’s south-east, the Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport, which once serviced mostly low-cost airlines, is now a pit stop for world leaders as the closest airport to Ukraine. From there, they journey to Kyiv for summit meetings with Mr Zelensky by train.

The civilian airport is now also used by the military, which has installed a row of Patriot surface-to-air missiles in an airfield pointing east (below).

Its proximity also means Rzeszow hosts a logistics centre to coordinate supplies into Ukraine, and a medical evacuation hub.

Mr Adam Szyszka, 43, an emergency medical technician, told ST that the airport plays a pivotal role in protecting Polish hospitals from the influx of refugees.

The medical hub serves as an intermediary point for the injured and sick arriving from Ukraine via ambulance convoy. From there, they are flown to other hospitals across the EU.

“We act as a bypass. If we weren’t here, the patients would end up in Polish hospitals and it would cause a huge overload,” he said.

His team includes Ukrainian colleague Maryna Kuzman, 32, who works as a psychiatrist.

Having fled the western Ukrainian city of Lviv after the war, she admits to suffering “compassion fatigue” that was worsened by her anxiety for her father and brother on the front lines.

To her, peace comes at a premium. “The worst thing would be a frozen conflict that would mean a permanent state of stress,” she said.

War fatigue has also crept in, and non-governmental organisations are united in pointing to a sharp plunge in funding.

Some are struggling, like the Hope Foundation, which runs a shelter and transit service in the border town of Przemysl. The charity offers Ukrainian refugees temporary boarding and helps them relocate.

American Jay Rivera, 38, who gave up a plum pharmaceuticals account director role to volunteer at the Hope Foundation, said: “We’re operating month to month, unsure when we will have to shut down.

“The unfortunate reality in humanitarian aid is that for many, it’s about the metrics.”

Over in Warsaw, the non-profit Polish Centre For International Aid (PCPM) is running an education centre for 220 Ukrainian children aged six to 17, staffed with Ukrainian refugee teachers.

It faces similar challenges.

“We’re doing all we can but it’s now difficult to mobilise help because of other conflicts and challenges worldwide,” said PCPM communications officer Ewa Kwasnik-Ciaglo.

The centre requires three million Polish zlotys but has raised only 40,000 zlotys thus far for the new academic year starting September.

Despite the threat of the war in Ukraine spilling beyond its borders, it is clear that people living on Nato’s eastern flank have found ways to thrive.

“It is dumb to ignore the threat. But I also think it’s wrong to become too depressed or (unable to act),” Mr Silver Kelk, 36, who heads business and innovation at industrial hub Ulemiste City in Estonia, told ST.

In Warsaw, the newly opened Varso Tower is the EU’s tallest building at 310m, with its rooftop deck slated to become the city’s newest tourist attraction when it opens in 2025.

Investments are pouring into Poland, which is celebrating 20 years in the EU with a buoyant economy expected to grow 2.9 per cent, from giants such as Microsoft and Google in the burgeoning cloud computing industry.

One Ukrainian business has also gained an unexpected boost from the war.

Lviv Croissants, a bakery-cafe that was founded in its namesake city in 2015, now has 170 outlets across Ukraine and 11 in Poland, after the war gave its expansion fresh legs in 2022.

There are ongoing talks in other countries, said Mr Orest Zahrodskyy, 26.

“The full-scale war pushed us forward,” Lviv Croissants’ head of business expansion told ST. “This is our contribution to the war effort, financially and through raising Ukraine’s brand awareness.”

The success of Lviv Croissants underscores the reality that everyday life carries on in Ukraine even as it is embroiled in a protracted war.

So much so that Ukrainians who now live abroad are returning for short visits, and non-Ukrainians are willing to take the risk.

Ms Anna Baran (above), 41, a Polish national who works at a charity in Britain, was at the Medyka border in Przemysl, Poland, before crossing over to Ukraine.

She told ST she is not afraid of making her annual trip into Ukraine, where she went to university, to visit friends.

“After all, anything can happen to you anywhere in the world; you may get hit by a car, a brick from the wall can fall on your head,” she said.

But there are others who refuse to return.

Ukrainian business owner Alex Karpinski, 40, who has been living in Warsaw with his wife since 2018 and now has a toddler daughter, bade a teary farewell at the checkpoint when the two returned home to Dnipro for a month to visit family.

Mr Karpinski stayed put, fully aware that he would be drafted were he to step foot into Ukraine.

Many Ukrainian men who refuse to fight have reportedly gone into hiding, even inside the country, as draft officers become more aggressive in hauling men aged 25 to 60 to the front lines to replenish exhausted and depleted fighting forces.

“I’m not happy with the law in Ukraine,” he said. “I can’t go back because I will be made to fight and die, and this is not what I want to do.”

Death is common, and many Ukrainians personally know someone who has died in the war.

Ms Valeriia Shakhunova (above right, with a colleague), 24, who has returned to Ukraine four times since the war began, told ST that her benefactor, who helped her flee the then occupied city of Kherson, was one of the victims.

“We may lose everything, but we truly understand now that life is the most important.”