Poland’s foreign minister has accused Russia of a “tactically stupid and counterproductive” escalation of the war in Ukraine, saying its drone incursion into Poland last month appeared to be deliberate.
Radosław Sikorski [...] said all Vladimir Putin had achieved with the incursion was a consolidation of western opinion against him. He also dismissed Russian concerns that supplying US Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would be unnecessarily provocative.
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Sikorski said the incursions were a reminder that Putin believed he was “at war with us” – a situation that he argued dated back in the Russian president’s mind to the 2006 Alexander Litvinenko poisoning and his combative speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference.
“He’s been at war with us, but we didn’t acknowledge it because it seemed too preposterous and too strange,” Sikorski said. The incursion into Poland was part of a “spectrum of provocations”, he said, including poisonings, sabotage and arson attacks, such as incendiary bombs at parcel sites in Poland, Germany and the UK.
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Donald Trump is expected to discuss whether to supply Ukraine with US Tomahawks, which have a range of more than 1,000 miles, in a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday that the issue was of “extreme concern” to Russia.
But Sikorski said concerns about the conflict spreading were exaggerated. “Every time we intended to give Ukraine new missiles, new types of weapons, somebody said, ‘Don’t do it, it’s escalatory. Don’t send them tanks. Don’t send them MiG fighters. Don’t send them F-16s. Don’t give them Himars [rockets] don’t give them Atacms [missiles].’ And every time Russia has had to adjust.”
The Tomahawks, Sikorski said, could be used to target Russian oil refineries, the subject of recent Ukrainian drone strikes. “Russia’s vastness means that you don’t have enough anti-aircraft assets to protect all the targets,” he said, noting Ukraine was having success in reducing Russia’s capacity to produce oil. “When you achieve success you should reinforce it.”
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“Only when Russia loses a war are there any reforms,” Sikorski said. “If Russia lost the war it would be good for Ukraine, it would be good for Europe, but it would also be good for Russia.”
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