Speaking to US broadcaster CBS News on Thursday, Radosław Sikorski was asked what Russia might do over the next two years to test NATO's Article 5 mutual defence clause.
"I wouldn't exclude the Russians doing some kind of false-flag operation against Russian territory in order to have a pretext for hitting one of the NATO countries," he said.
"We need to communicate to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that we know what he's up to and that we will not be taken in and that this would be completely unacceptable, and we would defend every inch of NATO territory," he added.
Sikorski argued that Ukraine's resistance had, for now, deprived Russia of the resources it would need to mount a successful invasion of NATO's eastern flank.
"Ukraine has certainly won in the Black Sea," he said, adding that Moscow now lacks air domination – it can fire missiles and drones but cannot operate freely in Ukrainian airspace.
The ground war, he said, is stuck, with Kyiv holding fire control over the strategic route between the Donbas and Crimea.
"Wars are never linear," Sikorski said. "They go through phases. But it looks like the phase of Russia having the initiative has ended."
He added that he did not believe Moscow currently had the strength to attack Poland itself, but said his country was preparing regardless, pointing to new laws making it easier to build shelters and to the Polish territorial army "so that we stay as resilient as the Ukrainians."
Sikorski, who was speaking in the northern Polish city of Gdańsk where a conference on Ukraine's reconstruction is under way, also touched on recent strains in Polish-Ukrainian relations after Kyiv named a military unit in honour of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
The UPA is a World War II-era formation remembered in Ukraine for fighting the Soviet Union, but seen in Poland as responsible for the ethnic massacres of Polish civilians in 1943-1945.
"It's not about people falling into each other's arms," he said. "It's about deciding not to repeat the bad stuff and to find a better common future."
He added that the two countries should not let Putin "take advantage of our disagreements."
On the prospects for peace talks, Sikorski said he believed it was better to let Russia and Ukraine negotiate directly, without third-party mediation, noting that the two sides were already discussing issues such as prisoner and body exchanges.
"We Europeans are not neutral between the two sides," Sikorski told CBS News. "We are on the side of the victim of aggression. And Russia is the aggressor."
He added that the United States was still supporting Ukraine, though "not as much as in the past," and that Putin should "find Zelensky's number" if he were genuinely ready for the ceasefire Kyiv has proposed or for a peace deal.
(ał/gs)
Source: PAP, cbsnews.com