Radosław Sikorski: We must convince Putin that he cannot win this war

Radosław Sikorski is Polish politician, public figure, Minister of Defense of Poland (2005-2007), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland (2007-2014). He is said to be a friend of Ukraine, a volunteer.

Mr. Sikorski, you have recently returned from Ukraine as a volunteer. Where exactly did you go and what are your impressions of what you saw in Ukraine?

It was the third time I was with the convoy of pickup trucks, led by Mateusz Wodziński, who has already delivered over 120 vehicles to Ukraine. This time I organized a fundraiser among my family and friends. And we managed to raise a little under 200,000 dollars, which will allow us to buy a dozen pickup trucks and two dozen drones. We brought seven of them last week. First, we went to Kyiv, then to Kharkiv, and from Kharkiv to Chasiv Yar, with one team, and the other team went to the front line to the 26th Artillery Brigade, which is dealing with Polish Krabs that fire American ammunition. The vehicles were delivered directly to the military at the front, and it was a great pleasure to have a Polish volunteer medic among them. Therefore, one of the pickup trucks will be used to transport the wounded. We have also brought a number of drones from Kyiv to Kharkiv for the frontline. I hope all this will help the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Thank you very much. But why are you going? This trip is not safe.  

People in the West think it's more dangerous than it really is. To prove it otherwise, because this time two donors participated in the trip, I convinced them by sharing that on the way back to Lviv I got a permit to exceed speed limits. So they decided that since I had the permit, it must be safe.

It's just like in the European Union. Could you share your impressions of what you saw? Did you go as far as Bakhmut?

Yes, as far as Kramatorsk. You can feel the war there, you can hear the shelling. And we know that the Ukrainian army is trying to surround Bakhmut and gain fire control over the Russians. I think this is a very smart operation. First, to inflict heavy losses on the Russians capturing a non-key city, and now to deprive them of the fruits of this conquest and complicate their logistics. In my opinion, this is a wise operation.

What did you tell your compatriots after this trip? What do your acquaintances, friends, politicians you talk to, perhaps in the EU, say about the war in Ukraine? Is there a feeling that some of them would like to see this war end already?

We would all like to see this war end, but the question lies in determining the conditions under which it will come to an end.

Exactly.

Putin should not be allowed to end it with territorial gains and success. It will end, I hope, when Ukraine recaptures its lands. I have the following thoughts from that mission. First, the 26th Artillery Brigade had very good feedback on Polish Krab howitzers, and it is heartening to know that Polish weapons are useful and there are quite a few of them. I don't know if it is possible to say exactly how many, but it is dozens of machines. They fire American high-precision ammunition such as Excalibur, at a range of 40 kilometers, with an accuracy of up to 1 meter. In my opinion, something like this is 10 to 20, maybe even 50 times better than conventional ammunition. So I am very glad that Ukraine has such weapons and I am also glad that they are partly supplied by Poland. What I am worried about is whether we have provided Ukraine with enough equipment to breach the Russian defense lines in the south. This is the right direction of the offensive, Ukraine has to get to the Sea of Azov, as it would strategically split the Russian occupation into two parts. Or Ukraine has to at least intercept that road along the sea coast, and even more importantly, it has to get around the railroad connection, because Russia carries out logistics operations by rail. I hope that in our cooperation with Ukraine, it is Ukraine that makes military decisions based on military logic, not on some Western political calendar. The absence of air superiority and the advantage the Russians gained from six months of digging in and building defense lines have made it challenging for the Ukrainian military to operate effectively. It appears that Putin is preparing for a prolonged conflict, and as a result, we in the West must be ready to provide ongoing support to Ukraine until the results are in.

You mentioned aviation. Why has the conversation about providing Ukrainians with F-16s been going on for so long? Now they are talking about training our military to be able to fly the fighter jets. But there is no final result yet, no certainty when the day for the start of training for Ukrainian pilots will finally be determined (after the interview was recorded, President Zelenskyy announced that training on F-16s would begin in August - Ed.) 

We mustn't forget that at the beginning of the war, there was reluctance to provide Ukraine even with long-range air defense weapons. However, Russia's lack of air superiority over Ukraine is a significant loss for them. This outcome was made possible by the supply of effective air defense missiles from the West, especially Poland, including both short and long-range missiles. When I was in Kharkiv on Wednesday, there were reportedly 3 or 7 drones flying towards Kharkiv. And from what I know, all of them were shot down. So in terms of protecting the territory of Ukraine, things are not that bad, although we know that people are still dying. But in terms of supporting Ukrainian forces on the front line in the offensive, more needs to be done. The West thought for a long time that Putin would withdraw because starting this war was obviously a mistake. And I think they are only slowly coming to the realization that Putin remains steadfast in pursuing his objectives. And that, as Russia continues to dedicate its economy to the war effort, we have to do the same. This is starting to happen, but very slowly.

You said that Putin does not want to end this war. What is his strategy now?

I was in Washington two weeks ago, where they monitor these things. As it turned out, US intelligence sources are very good when it comes to Russian plans and Russian actions. And many times, especially at the beginning of the war, they were able to use them strategically. And the Americans are convinced that a huge part of Russia's budget is now military spending, and yet Russia is still not able to advance. This is a big compromise for Russia, but we know that this country has certain means. It exports energy and gets some parts through third countries. And Putin can hope that having a fourfold advantage in terms of people, he will just eventually exhaust Ukraine. And we have to, by giving Ukraine advantages in terms of weapons, finally convince the Russian elites that they cannot win this war, because only then will they start serious negotiations.

But is there anyone to talk to in Russia? With the elites you are talking about.

For now, Putin is in control, so we need to convince him. If he decides to have a serious conversation about withdrawal, about the end of the war, there will be enough mediators, whether it is Turkey, China, or the United Nations, there is enough people willing to do so.

The only thing is that Putin needs to want to end the war, but it seems that he has no such desire. 

He will want to end it when he himself comes to the conclusion that the invasion was a mistake, when he realizes that any benefits from the re-conquest of Ukraine, the colonization of a part of Ukraine, are not worth the costs he is already incurring. In most of these colonial wars, the victory is won by a completely different team than the one that started it, so Putin would have to come to the conclusion that continuing that war directly threatens his power. Or he would have to be replaced.

How long will it take for Putin to make that decision?

It will depend on the level of Russian casualties and the morale of the Russian army, which, as we can see from Prigozhin's mutiny, is very low. The question is whether Russian soldiers will begin to do what they did in 1919, when, instead of dying meaninglessly, they preferred to refuse to carry out the orders of their officers. There are isolated reports of this, but it would have to be on a larger scale.

Is the world ready for riots to break out in Russia and for Putin to lose his power?

Putin must lose his power and face the International Criminal Court. And we know what they are saying in Russia. I don't know if you noticed the statement that I was very happy to hear from Girkin-Strelkov before his arrest. He was asked whether Putin would end up in The Hague. And the colonel, I must admit, said quite sincerely that "if we lose this war, and we will lose it," and I quote, "if they don't kill Navalny first", and I continue to quote, "then if Navalny becomes president, Putin will be sent to The Hague." I was surprised that they recorded Girkin’s words.

But Navalny then said that Girkin was a political prisoner. In Ukraine, this man is considered a criminal and a terrorist.

One does not deny the other. But the fact that Navalny said from prison that a future democratic Russia would 100% withdraw from Ukraine and pay reparations from future hydrocarbon export revenues is something that Ukraine should take into account. The fact that such a discussion is taking place among Putin's prisoners, Russian emigrants, and some Russian elites is good, not bad. It is good that the alternative Russian elite has such a plan.

Prigozhin and his unsuccessful rebellion led to the fact that Wagner mercenaries are now in Belarus. And some of them are very close to the border with Poland. Is Poland scared? What does Polish society think of the reports that representatives of a terrorist organization are now very close by?

De facto, we are already in the process of an election campaign, so the government is trying to build a sense of threat here. But I don't think that a few hundred or even a few thousand mercenaries are a threat to Poland and to NATO, because this is the border not only of Poland, but also of the EU and NATO. Let me tell you something very clear: just as Putin cannot defeat Ukraine, he will not defeat Poland and NATO. If Wagner mercenaries cross the border, they will simply be eliminated.

You mentioned the elections in Poland. Poland is an example of democracy and democracy building for Ukraine. But this summer, Poles came out to protest, probably the largest in recent years. So we see that something is happening to democracy in Poland. Doesn't it look like a process of "Orbanization"? 

I would rather equate it to what is happening in Israel, where people are also protesting against the ruling party's growing influence on the judiciary. Unfortunately, this has happened in Poland, the prosecutor's office has been militarized, the constitutional court has now had a bit of an internal quarrel, but it is also under the influence of the ruling party and is trying to politicize the appointment of judges. For this reason, Poland, unfortunately, is in conflict with the EU institutions and does not receive hundreds of billions of zlotys from the national reconstruction plan. So, I can tell the Ukrainian public that if there is a change of government in October or November, it will continue to support Ukraine as much as before, but at the same time it will improve its relations with Brussels and Berlin, and then it will be more influential in the EU, and will be able to have a greater impact on speeding up Ukraine's negotiations with the European Union.

And why have Russians recently been repeating that Poland and the Poles are helping Ukraine so much in order to occupy Ukraine, or at least the West of Ukraine?

In order to make Poles and Ukrainians quarrel. Putin has done this before. In 2009, in Gdansk, in conversations, he hinted at Lviv, "But Lviv is a Polish city." We ignored it, rejected it. Then Zhirinovsky sent me, and he was then the deputy chairman of the Russian Duma, a letter with a de facto offer, and we rejected it as well. This is an attempt to involve us in some kind of dispute in the future. I don't think any Polish government would do that. I can't say this about all European countries, but Poland has learned from its history. You know, the miracle of European integration is based on German-French mutual understanding. I partially work in Strasbourg, where the European Parliament is based, which was once a Roman fort on the Rhine, and then for 2,000 years Strasbourg changed its affiliation between the Germans and France. It's surrounded by fortresses, battlefields, cemeteries, and how many millions of people died to change the border, but it remained the same. And the Europeans, the French and the Germans, came to the conclusion that instead of fighting for that border, it would be better to integrate so that it would not matter where the border was. I think that we, Poles and Ukrainians, have also come to the same conclusion. And this is a great value that needs to be protected, and we will not allow ourselves to be manipulated either by the past, where both sides were to blame, or by some Putin's intrigues.

And Polish society? Is it laughing at these Russian proposals?

That's how it seems to me. Of course, there are still families who suffered during the Volyn tragedy, and I hope that the issues of exhumation and commemoration will be resolved, because they need to be resolved. And of course, the fact that there are now more than a million refugees from Ukraine in Poland sometimes causes irritation, but the task of politicians is to explain, and the task of our Ukrainian guests is to minimize the causes of irritation so that Ukraine receives as much support as possible, which is good for both our countries.

Recently, Polish football fans came to a match with a poster that said Bandera was a criminal, and they also wrote things about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army that I cannot repeat on TV. How to manage this? For Ukrainians, Bandera is a symbol of the struggle against Russia, the struggle for Ukraine, but not someone who did anything wrong to the Poles.

Here we have a difference in perspectives, but also a difference in education. I mean, you need to explain that Bandera was also the leader of the formation, and I know that he was in a German concentration camp at the time, but one of his deputies, I cannot remember his name now, gave the order to kill 100,000 Poles. 100,000 Poles, innocent people, in 1943. And I know that this has its historical roots. What the Polish gentry did in the 17th and 18th centuries, and that before the war Poland's policy towards Ukrainians in Volyn was a policy of forced assimilation, and that it was a wrong policy, but 100,000 people died. And I know that the hero of one nation can be the oppressor of another. But great nations are able to recognize their mistakes. We are trying to explain that no one was without fault, and you should do the same.

We forgive and ask for forgiveness.

Our bishops made this statement to the Germans in the 1960s. That was when the communist government was turning Poles against the Germans. Today we have a government that also turns Poles against Germans, but I think it is ineffective because most Poles cooperate well with most Germans, and we should not allow populists to win on historical misunderstandings. Because it will not bring back the lives of any victim, not one, but it may cause new victims in the future.

Can Russia again use these difficult pages of our common history with Poland against Ukraine and Poland, as it has done before?

I can guarantee that it will do so. I remember in 2011, when during the Polish presidency of the EU, with great efforts, including my own, we finalized the text of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. And suddenly, a draft resolution appeared in the Polish Sejm that changed the attitude towards Volyn and the Volyn tragedy. Literally, a couple of years before, the Polish Sejm passed a resolution that it was a war crime with signs of genocide. And now, suddenly, it should be just genocide, or an aggravation of the description. In the end, nothing has changed in terms of historians' opinions or the number of victims, but someone really wanted to stir up new enmity between Ukrainians and Poles. Only the enemies of both our countries need this.