In an interview with The Guardian, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski urged a “long-term rearmament of Europe” to defeat Russian imperial ambitions.
Sikorski, according to the report, called for majority voting for EU sanctions, a 5,000-strong EU mechanized brigade, and said Poland was willing to back an EU-wide scheme to incentivize Ukrainian draft dodgers to return to their homeland.
Sikorski stated, “We have allowed all those production facilities to be closed down after the end of the Cold War. It costs money to persuade companies to keep production lines in reserve. We just didn’t pay the money. That was part of the peace dividend. And with hindsight it looks like a mistake.”
He argued that Europe “didn’t just disarm, it deindustrialized in the defense field.”
Sikorski also said that allies should drop the principle of unanimity in sanctions. “Some of them have been delayed by one member state blocking them. And also, it should be an EU crime to breach EU sanctions and therefore prosecutable by the European prosecution service.”
Regarding Ukraine’s right to strike military targets inside Russia, Sikorski stated, “The Russians are hitting the Ukrainian’s electricity grid and their grain terminals and gas storage capacity, civilian infrastructure. The Russian operation is conducted from the HQ at Rostov-on-Don. Besides not using nuclear weapons, Russia does not limit itself much.”
Polish FM also expressed skepticism about Russian threats of utilizing nuclear weapons, stating: “The Americans have conveyed a stern warning to the Russians – if you detonate a nuclear device, regardless of whether it causes any casualties, we will unleash conventional weaponry to obliterate all of your positions and targets within Ukraine.”
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