The Polish top diplomat also called for a majority vote for EU sanctions and a 5,000-strong EU mechanized brigade. As can be read in The Guardian, according to Sikorski Poland was willing to back an EU-wide scheme to incentivize Ukrainian draft dodgers to return to their homeland.
In an interview with the British Daily, Sikorski said "Poland backed the right of Ukraine to strike at military targets inside Russia, arguing that the West had to stop constantly limiting itself in what it does to support Ukraine."
While in London, Sikorski also met on Thursday with his British counterpart David Cameron to discuss cooperation between Poland and the UK, bilateral relations, preparations for the upcoming NATO summit, and support for Ukraine. During his meeting, he highlighted that Poland is spending 4% of its GDP on defense, and in his opinion, other countries had catching up to do.
He admitted European defense manufacturers still "did not feel that the rearmament process was permanent" and said that "Vladimir Putin was spending 40% of GDP on defense and would eventually bankrupt his country by making the military resource-hungry," writes The Guardian.
Sikorski also pointed out that Europe had to learn to play the escalation game better by keeping Putin guessing about its intentions. Asked whether it was permissible for Ukraine to strike military targets inside Russia, he said: "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. Apart from not using nuclear weapons, Russia does not limit itself much."
However, the Polish Foreign Minister was rather skeptical about Russian threats to use nuclear weapons, saying: "The Americans have told the Russians that if you explode a nuke, even if it doesn’t kill anybody, we will hit all your targets [positions] in Ukraine with conventional weapons, we’ll destroy all of them."
(aj)
SOURCE: PAP, The Guardian