“It is not we, the West, who should fear a clash with Putin, but the other way around,” Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said.

“It is not we, the West, who should fear a clash with Putin, but the other way around,” Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said.

A war between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and NATO would end with Moscow’s “inevitable defeat,” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Thursday.

"It is not we, the West, who should fear a clash with Putin, but the other way around,” Sikorski said during a speech to the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament. “It is worth reminding about this, not to increase the sense of threat in the Russians, because NATO is a defensive pact, but to show that an attack by Russia on any of the members of the Alliance would end in its [Russia’s] inevitable defeat.”

Sikorski, who was laying out Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s vision for the new government’s foreign policy, said Russia’s military and economic potential “pales in comparison to that of the West,” as NATO has three times as many military personnel, three times the aerial resources and four times as many ships as Russia.

…

Western allies and top military officials have become increasingly worried about a potential spillover of violence from Putin’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine — as the Russian leader continues to issue veiled nuclear threats toward the West and stashes atomic weapons in Belarus, which borders NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

  • Thorry84English
    3·
    2 months ago

    Remember also that Brexit was a huge victory for Russia. With the EU no longer being able to count on GB in times of conflict, the chance of going to war over the Baltics gets even smaller. And even if NATO is a no-go, if GB would commit surely the US would support them. Brexit fucked it up for Europe and shows how far in advance Russia was planning this.

    Russia is doing everything they can to destabilize the EU and get the far right in power in Europe. Even if those far right parties aren’t in Putins pocket, they will still promote isolationist policies and destabilize Europe further. Plus all the far right politicians seem to primarily be in politics to get rich and divert public money away from things like defense and into the pockets of themselves and their sponsors.

    The trouble is, we can see this happening and are powerless to do anything about it. Misinformation campaigns, populism, false promises, hate and racism seem to drive politics these days. Elections are held fair and in time, but the people are so blinded, they vote for the things that will ultimately prove to be very bad for them.

    • Womble@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      While Brexit definitely was a massive win for Russia, I disagree with the characterisation of it meaning the EU can no longer rely on the UK in times of conflict. The UK has been pretty consistent with wanting to increase security cooperation with the EU since then (sadly the only thing they do seem to want to cooperate on) and have done things like forge mutual defense treaties with Finland and Sweden when the decision to join NATO was made but not yet formalised.