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Sikorski: Russia has regained initiative

Poland’s top diplomat says Russia must pay to rebuild Ukraine and that EU support is not wavering

Radek Sikorski, Poland’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs, has told HARDtalk that “the Russians seem to have regained the initiative” in the war against Ukraine. Nonetheless, he described Moscow’s victories as “pyrrhic” and does not think that “they can sustain that level of losses”.

Speaking to Stephen Sackur, Mr Sikorski noted that Ukrainians “are successfully hitting targets behind enemy lines, including in Russia”. Meanwhile, the EU has made the decision in principle “to seize the income from the frozen Russian state bank assets” which, the minister said, established the principle “that the aggressor should pay for the damage that it does”.

Mr Sikorski, who previously served as Poland’s foreign minister from 2007 to 2014, revealed that the EU is “close to reaching our target” of providing Ukraine one million artillery shells by March. He insisted that “we are increasing our production capacity” and that President Putin “has no hope of outproducing us”. He said that Russia is “getting help” from North Korea and Iran, but added that the West is “twenty times richer than Russia” and would gain the upper hand “if we put our minds to it”.

Mr Sikorski is a close ally of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose new government is seeking to improve Poland’s standing in the EU. He conceded that “it sometimes takes time” for the EU to take action and that “if we had a British voice at the European Council, it might have helped”. But he stressed that member states are doing a significant amount for Ukraine, stating that “Poland is on a per capita basis the number one contributor”. He added that “we are, as a new government looking at new ways, and there will be more military supplies to Ukraine.”

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4 minutes