Russia would be defeated in Nato conflict, says Poland
Poland warned Russia yesterday that a conflict with Nato would lead to its “inevitable defeat”, after Moscow threatened to expand its war beyond the borders of Ukraine.
Moscow and Warsaw have been trading barbs since the Polish President, Andrzej Duda, said that his country would be ready to host nuclear weapons of a Nato member and Russia moved missiles to neighbouring Belarus.
Mr Duda’s remarks sparked angry responses from Russian officials, who have warned Poland that it would be considered a legitimate target in the event of a direct confrontation with Nato.
The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the Polish leader’s comments as “provocative”.
“As you understand, if the American weapons are deployed on the territory of Poland, the [Russian] list of legitimate targets to defeat in a situation of direct military confrontation with Nato will be immediately updated,” she warned yesterday. The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov (inset), said that any Nato weapons sent to Poland would become a priority target for the Kremlin.
“If they follow the path of further escalation – and this is how the discussions can be assessed, these so far verbal games with nuclear weapons – then a further round of tension will occur,” he said.
“And in general, this game is very dangerous, its consequences may be hard to predict.” Poland hit back, suggesting that Russia would falter if it tried to wage war with the military alliance, whose presence covers a huge swathe of its borders in Europe.
“It is not we – the West – who should be afraid of a clash with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, but the other way around,” said the Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski.
“It is worth remembering this, not to increase the sense of threat in Russians, because Nato is a defence pact, but to show that a Russian attack on any of the members of the alliance would end in its inevitable defeat.”
Belarus, a key Russian ally, has also joined the fray, accusing Nato member Lithuania of launching a drone attack on Minsk that was thwarted by the country’s security service. Lithuania rejected the claims.
“The state security committee… has recently carried out a number of acute security measures, which made it possible to prevent strikes by combat drones from the territory of Lithuania on objects in Minsk and its suburbs,” said the Belarusian security chief, Ivan Tertel.
Belarus’s President, Alexander Lukashenko, warned that a growing stand-off between his country, Russia and the West could end with a nuclear “apocalypse”.
He said “several dozen” Russian nuclear weapons were on Belarusian soil under an agreement that he and Mr Putin announced last year – the first time since the Soviet era that Russia has deployed nuclear missiles in a foreign country.
Mr Lukashenko also said the West had “turned Ukraine into a drug addict, which is kept on a short leash by promises of a new dose of additional weapons”.