Poland’s foreign minister: China should shut down the Ukraine war

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Excerpts:

Lally Weymouth: Do you know anything about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace plan, which he brought to President Joe Biden?

Radosław Sikorski: I heard about it from him in Kyiv two weeks ago, but he said that Biden would be the first person to read it. I haven’t seen it yet.

Do you foresee a settlement of the war?

The war will end when Vladimir Putin stops his aggression against Ukraine. I think Putin will stop when he comes to the conclusion that he cannot win at an acceptable cost. He is not yet at that point.

Reportedly, part of Zelensky’s peace plan is that Ukraine become a member of NATO. Do you favor that?

We are generally in favor.

What do you think of the recent threat by Putin in regard to lowering Russia’s nuclear threshold? Wasn’t Putin implying that if Ukraine used weapons from a NATO country, that would take things closer to a nuclear war?

I think this public talk of nuclear weapons is a means for Russia to intimidate Western public opinion. I don’t believe that when they meet in the Kremlin and Putin decides to use nuclear weapons, that his people would say, “Oh no, Mr. President, you can’t do that, that’s not compatible with our doctrine.” Putin is a dictator. He will be deterred by our strength, not by his own doctrines.

Nobody is contemplating any aggression against Russia. It’s Russia that is an aggressor. It’s Russia that invaded Ukraine. Putin feels secure to throw everything he has into the war against Ukraine because he knows that NATO is a purely defensive alliance.

Does Poland want to see Ukraine win the war?

Yes, Poland wants international law to be restored. We voted at the U.N. at the beginning of this invasion to condemn Russia as an aggressor. That is the world speaking. We have a duty to take countermeasures against the aggressor, to restore the status quo and to defend the principle that you may not change borders by force.

What does Ukraine need most from the West: more weapons, more financial aid, fewer restrictions on the use of weapons that the U.S. sends?

Putin didn’t think that we would come to the assistance of Ukraine. He thought we would be weak and divided. But since 2022, we have so far supplied Ukraine with billions of dollars’ worth of assistance. We will provide more. Putin’s resources are not infinite. He has had to double the signing-up fee [to recruit] soldiers. He is running out of tanks. We need to stay the course for another year or two and then Putin will have to recalculate.

Do you worry about the outcome of the U.S. election, especially for Ukraine?

We do, but we cannot be seen to be partial in any way. We want to have the best possible relations with the United States irrespective of who is in charge.

How is Poland’s defense spending?

We have the largest defense budget in proportion to gross domestic product in NATO including the United States: 4.3 percent this year, going on to 4.7 percent next year. We have taken in 1.6 million Ukrainian refugees. Moreover, we have provided Ukraine $4.3 billion in military assistance.

We were a Russian colony in the 19th century, and we are not going back. This is my message at the United Nations because large parts of the world have had an experience with European colonialism. Russia is trying to recover its Ukrainian colony. I think Poland is uniquely positioned to be telling our friends in Africa, Asia and Latin America that we were victims of colonialism, too. And former countries that suffered from European colonialism should sympathize with the latter-day victim, which is Ukraine.

I’m going to be seeing the foreign minister of China today. They were victims of unequal treaties, including by Russia.

They haven’t done a thing (to help Ukraine), have they?

We feel that they should. Putin would not be able to prosecute this war without components and material from China. So China could shut down this war. And it should.

You have said that Poland has a “duty” to shoot down incoming missiles from Russia before they enter Polish airspace.

Russia is launching hundreds of cruise missiles and drones at Ukraine every month. They lose control over some of these projectiles. Russian drones have landed in Latvia and in Romania. We have had Russian missiles reaching Polish airspace. Of course, we have the right to protect our airspace. The question is whether we have the right to self-defense when drones or missiles are imminently about to enter our airspace. Ukraine is asking us to do this over their territory.

Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, disagrees.

A similar problem has to do with the Ukrainian nuclear power plants. If an out-of-control Russian missile hits one of the Ukrainian nuclear plants, all of Europe will have a problem. We should be supplying Ukraine with antiaircraft defense to protect their nuclear power plants.

Do you think the Biden administration should remove the restrictions from the weapons the United States is sending to Ukraine?

I think the Ukrainians have the right to target Russian bombers and airfields from which the bombers fly. Russia has destroyed 70 percent of (Ukraine’s) electricity capacity, hoping to break Ukraine’s will during the upcoming winter.

Are you worried that U.S. support will not continue because it’s been more than two years since the war started?

That’s what Putin is counting on. He has been a dictator for two decades, and we are governed by electoral cycles.

I’m not talking about elections. I’m talking about general fatigue in the West.

What are we fatigued by? It’s the Ukrainians who are fatigued. We should stay the course because, if Putin loses, international law will be restored and Russia will then reform itself.

You know Zelensky well. Can he keep going?

I don’t see why not. The sacrifices are horrific. Putin would love for Ukraine to capitulate and to have peace on his terms, in other words to have a subjugated, Russified Ukraine. We believe it’s not up to Putin to decide who is a real nation and who isn’t or where international borders should lie.

If we don’t stop Putin now and we allow him to conquer Ukraine, he will come up to the Polish border and he will be even more dangerous and more difficult to stop. So it’s better to do it now.