Poland is unlikely to be attacked by Russia in the near future, President Andrzej Duda has said in an interview with a national newspaper published on Monday. His comments come after several Polish officials claimed the country is facing an imminent threat from Moscow.
Asked to comment on the possibility of a Russian assault on Poland within the next few years, Duda told the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna that it is “impossible to say that there is no threat at all,” claiming that Moscow aims to bring the Baltic states and countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic into its sphere of influence.
At the same time, the Polish president suggested that the threat of an actual Russian offensive was “unrealistic,” and that if Warsaw “responds appropriately today and creates the potential to resist aggression,” the country would not be attacked.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk claimed in an interview last month that Europe has entered a “pre-war era” and that the possibility of an all-out war could no longer be ruled out. A number of other Western politicians have similarly suggested in recent months that Russia is planning to attack NATO.
Tusk and other Western leaders have insisted that military aid for Ukraine must be increased, arguing that Russia would eventually attack other European nations if it defeats Kiev.
Moscow, however, has repeatedly denied having any intentions or reasons to attack NATO states. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed such claims as “nonsense,” suggesting that Kiev’s backers are using the supposed threat of a Russian offensive to drum up support for additional aid to Ukraine.
Putin has stressed that US “satellites” in Eastern Europe have no reason to fear an invasion, and that claims of a potential Russian attack are merely government propaganda aimed at scaring citizens “to extract additional expenses from people, to make them bear this burden [of funding Ukraine] on their shoulders.”