In an interview for the AFP, DPA and PAP news agencies, he drew a parallel between Vladimir Putin’s military policies and those of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, arguing that the Russian president is spending vast sums on armaments despite leading an economy “the size of Texas."
NATO leaders on Wednesday adopted a new commitment to raise collective defence spending to 5 percent of GDP. They also reaffirmed Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the alliance’s cornerstone pledge of mutual defence.
US President Donald Trump joined fellow leaders in endorsing the Hague Summit Declaration.
“The summit was very productive,” Sikorski said in the interview. “Russia was clearly named as a long-term threat to the alliance.”
He noted that Poland's centrist government and conservative President Andrzej Duda had worked together closely on the 5-percent defence pledge.
“That is undoubtedly a success,” he said.
The summit followed days of speculation over Trump’s stance on Article 5, after he declined to give a straight answer when asked whether he still upheld the commitment.
At the summit, however, he affirmed it, Poland's PAP news agency reported.
Sikorski sought to downplay earlier concerns, saying: “Technically speaking, President Trump is right. Article 5 doesn’t mandate automatic military action. It’s a political judgment – and it has been only invoked once, following 9/11, to defend the United States.”
He added that Trump appeared satisfied with the outcome: “Europe listened to him. It has doubled defence spending since his first term. Now it’s committed to doubling it again – reaching the same level of proportional defence spending as the US.”
Asked about Spain’s initial reluctance to endorse the 5-percent target, Sikorski said threat perception in Europe is not uniform.
“Spain has never been occupied by Russia," he said. "But it also understands the Russian threat from the south – from Libya or the Sahel. I hope that by the end of the decade, it will find the will and means to show European solidarity on both strategic fronts.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez ultimately supported the agreement. He pledged that Spain would meet NATO’s defence capability goals, although he argued that current spending of 2 percent of GDP was sufficient to achieve them.
Chinese troops to exercise on NATO border
Sikorski warned that Western hopes of splitting the Russia-China axis were unrealistic.
He cited upcoming joint military exercises in Belarus – Zapad 2025 – which are expected to include troops from China and North Korea.
“Somehow, this hasn’t registered in Western Europe: Chinese troops are set to participate in exercises on the EU and NATO border," he told the three news agencies. "This dream of a Chinese-Russian split is just that – a dream.”
The minister argued that Putin is repeating Soviet mistakes.
“He himself once said the USSR collapsed because it overspent on arms," Sikorski said of Putin. "Now he is doing the same. He has launched an extremely expensive war, and provoked the entire West into boosting military expenditure.”
With Russia’s economy comparable in size to Texas, “Putin will have to squeeze even more out of it to keep up,” Sikorski predicted.
He also addressed ongoing tensions in the Middle East, arguing that Iran’s decades-long policy of funding proxy militias and pursuing uranium enrichment had ended in abject failure for the country.
“Thirty-five years ago, Poland and Iran were at a similar level of economic development," Sikorski said. "We chose cooperation, democracy, the market, and Western alliances. Now we’re economically on par with Japan, while Iran remains stuck where it was.”
Finally, Sikorski welcomed the recent release of 14 political prisoners from Belarus, including three Polish citizens and Siarhei Tsikhanouski, husband of the exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
He credited the intervention of retired US General Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, and reiterated Poland’s call for the release of all political prisoners in Belarus, “especially Andrzej Poczobut.”
Poczobut, a journalist and Polish minority activist, was sentenced in 2023 to eight years in a high-security penal colony for “inciting hatred” and “rehabilitating Nazism” – widely condemned charges seen as politically motivated.
He is being held in the notorious prison in Novopolotsk, and his appeal was rejected by Belarus’ Supreme Court.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP