EU citizens need to get used to living with the thought of impending war, as a military conflict with Russia is not ruled out in the near future, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said.
“What is most worrying now is that literally any scenario is possible. We haven’t experienced such a situation since 1945. I know it sounds catastrophic, especially for people of the younger generation, but we should mentally get used to the onset of a new era – the pre-war era”, Tusk said in an interview with international publications.
He recalled that he warned about the danger posed by Russia back in 2009. However, then “people shrugged their shoulders: of course, a Pole, a Russophobe”, but now in European capitals the attitude to this problem is changing, Tusk said.
Nevertheless, there are exceptions. According to Tusk, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez recently asked not to use the word “war” in official statements so as not to cause unnecessary anxiety with abstract words. “I replied that in my part of Europe, war is no longer an abstraction and that our duty is not to discuss, but to act and prepare for defense”, Tusk said.
The Polish prime minister believes that the main task for Europe at the moment is to defend Ukraine and preserve it as an independent and integral state. In this regard, Tusk urged Europeans to spend more on defense and reminded that according to the fundamental principle of NATO, at least 2 percent of GDP should be allocated for this purpose.
Earlier, Polish President Andrzej Duda said that Moscow could attack NATO countries as early as 2026. The reason for this could be the invitation of Ukraine to the North Atlantic Alliance, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said. In this regard, he said, Ukraine’s accession to the alliance at the NATO summit in July this year is not planned.
In early December last year, US President Joe Biden said that Russia posed a growing threat to the North Atlantic alliance countries. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin warned that Ukraine’s defeat would lead to Russia’s war with NATO. Vladimir Putin “will not stop” in his attempts to “seize the sovereign territory of his neighbors”, Austin stressed.
Putin himself called such statements “nonsense”. “This is just a figure of speech to justify his erroneous policy on the Russian direction”, he noted, emphasizing that Russia has “no resonance, no interest” in going to war with NATO.
