Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski: "A Ukrainian barber cuts my hair in Warsaw. I ask him, shouldn't you be defending Ukraine?"

Radosław Sikorski is Poland's longest-serving foreign minister (in office from 2007-2014 and again since 2023) and a close ally of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Sikorski arguably understands Ukraine better than any other member of the government, and he often advocates for solutions and approaches that other ministers are not yet ready for. He has also publicly supported Polish army involvement in protecting the airspace over western Ukraine, but neither the Polish government nor NATO endorsed his proposal.

During this brief interview at the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting, we discussed these issues, as well as historical disputes and the situation of Ukrainians in Poland.

"We have red lines too, and nobody ever asks about those"

Minister, you recently said that Ukraine's resilience is not endless, and I fully agree with you. Does this mean that time is not on Ukraine’s side, but against us?

Well, no country could do what you are doing infinitely. We feel for your soldiers who have been at the front, some without being rotated for months and years. We feel for your people who live in the daily terror of a possible attack.

On my way here I visited Lviv and the site of the Russian strike on a civilian house in which that lovely family was killed and the father was the only survivor. And by the way, we are going to rebuild one of those townhouses in Lviv, as the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, has declared.

Some economists say that actually the Russian war economy is in full swing. Others point out that the Russians are running out of the hulks of post-Soviet tanks to refurbish.

We don't have a full picture.

But these kinds of colonial wars historically take some years to resolve.

Ukraine is pleading with our Western partners to lift some restrictions – for example, on striking deep into Russia, on other means and other restrictions that our partners impose. Do you see anything changing here?

Tony Blinken was here [in Kyiv last week – EP]. He then came to Warsaw. I talked to him. I urged the US and other allies not to put these restrictions on. Because Russian missile strikes on Ukraine – on Ukrainian dams, on Ukrainian electricity plants – are actually war crimes, and the victim of aggression has the right to defend itself against war crimes.

And for the war crimes to stop, you would need to take down the bombers that launch the missiles or the airfields from which they start. And those are a considerable range inside Russia, but they are, in international law, perfectly legitimate military targets.

We know all the arguments for striking Russia, but it still hasn’t happened. Why are the restrictions still in place?

This is a very good question – but to the countries that have those weapons.

Western journalists always ask me about Putin's red lines and Putin's threats of escalation, to which I have at least two answers.

Number one: we have red lines too, and they never ask about those. Secondly, I don't think that there is anything that Putin is not doing that he will do in response to what we do.

I would be very surprised if he was mad enough to start a war with NATO, and his threats of using nuclear weapons have also so far been hollow.

"We don't have enough means to defend ourselves"

There are also questions about Poland's decisiveness as regards air defence. Ukraine has repeatedly asked Poland to help protect its skies. What is holding you back?

Poland is on its 45th package of support for Ukraine, about €100 million each.

We have provided you with over €4 billion of assistance – material assistance, we're not counting the support for your refugees in Poland.

Poland has its own needs.

We only have two Patriot batteries ourselves. Russian drones and missiles breach Polish territory, and our first duty, obviously, is to protect our own citizens.

But you have never shot them down. Even when they breached the Polish border.

Which underlines my point that we don't have enough to defend ourselves.

I've made the point today at the YES conference that we should collectively do more to protect Ukrainian nuclear power plants and to protect the NATO border.

And was it President Zelenskyy who said that there are existing anti-aircraft systems in Western Europe and beyond that could be brought to where they are needed.

I'm trying to understand the reason why Poland has not started helping to defend Ukrainian skies with other means, with F-16s. I remember you personally said that Poland is obliged to shoot down missiles and drones before they approach the Polish border.

That is not exactly what I said. Our Constitution obliges us to defend our territory.

Of course it does. And we do defend our territory.

But the operation that you mentioned requires some Alliance collaboration.

I have to ask about the Czech initiative [to procure artillery shells for Ukraine]. Gazeta Wyborcza reported today that Poland is not contributing to it as promised. What’s going on?

There is a political decision to contribute, if memory serves, 50 million this year and another 50 million next year.

There are some technical, administrative and legal issues to do with the Government Agency for Strategic Reserves.

On this issue, the Foreign Ministry has done what is up to us. I hope my colleagues from other ministries will also make it happen. It will happen.

"We don't yet have enough volunteers for the Ukrainian Legion"

There is a discussion in Ukraine about the return of Ukrainian men of conscription age from abroad. Some are even wanted for conscription. Is there a feasible way to bring them back to Ukraine?

Well, you passed your mobilisation law, in my opinion, at least a year too late. It's best to pass such laws when you still have plenty of volunteers and when people don’t feel personally threatened.

But yes, it's a bit odd, isn't it? I go to the barber in Warsaw, and my hair is cut by a Ukrainian barber, and he seems younger than you. I ask him, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be defending your country?

And in Poland, we don't pay such able-bodied refugees social security payments. They have to support themselves or be at work.

In Western Europe, they are more generous. And the question is whether there should be financial incentives to be there rather than here.

Your government has communicated to us that you want your Ukrainians back, that you need the tax base, you need the people working in the factories, but also you need people to rotate those brave soldiers fighting at the front.

You referred to incentives, but is there a feasible way to oblige those people to return?

I don't regard myself as an expert on this issue, but we’ve had such emergencies in other countries.

When Israel was attacked by Hamas on 7 October, thousands of Israelis literally dropped their jobs abroad and rushed to be mobilised.

Voluntarily.

I am not sure whether it's voluntary.

I'm told – check, please – that if you don't show up for an annual reservist exercise in Switzerland or maybe even Finland, you are in danger of losing your citizenship. There are systems.

What’s the situation with the Ukrainian Legion that you announced – creating a brigade of volunteers in Poland?

We are ready. We’ve been ready for some time. We are waiting for the Ukrainian conscripts or volunteers.

If my information is correct, thousands have registered in your database to update their places of residence and make themselves theoretically available.

But so far as I know, we don't yet have enough volunteers to make up a brigade.

"We don't think this is too much to ask"

Finally, let's talk about history. Can we agree on resolving our dispute? Is there any progress in our dialogue?

I think something should happen. Namely, we should not play politics.

There are painful moments in every country's history. Every nation has done things that they are not necessarily proud of. It goes all kinds of ways. But there is also a Christian duty to bury the dead.

I don't know to what extent your public opinion knows what happened in Volhynia. But what happened was that the Ukrainian resistance gave an order to ethnically cleanse Volhynia of Polish inhabitants.

The means of this ethnic cleansing was widespread massacres in which between 80,000 and 120,000 people were murdered.

There were Polish countermeasures too, of course, but it was initiated and the bulk of the victims were Polish residents of Volhynia.

We don't want to make politics out of it, but it's a live political issue in Poland, because these people have descendants. All of the population of those areas was then deported into what is today's Poland.

So these people have relatives. They vote. It's a live political issue.

And these victims of the massacre require Christian burial. That's all we ask.

It is well covered in Ukraine, but there is also another view that this is a political dispute which should be in the hands of historians instead.

Yes, when the victims are given Christian burial, then it will be for historians. But first, you need to exhume them and bury them. Do you agree or not?

I absolutely disagree with the statements being made in Poland that Ukraine will not join the EU because of [Stepan] Bandera and [Roman] Shukhevych. History is complex, and for Ukrainians, these figures are heroes. Does this mean that if you stick to your position and we stick to ours, the path to the EU is closed for us?

Every country has the right to its own interpretations of history.

That's why, for example, between Poland and Germany, we had this commission on writing history books and history school books in which at least we agree on the facts.

And the fact is that Mr Bandera's organisation – I understand he was at the time in a concentration camp – gave the order for a mass extermination of Polish civilians.

The question is whether we can join the EU if we praise these people.

You are saying this. I'm not saying it.

But I'm saying that you will need friends.

You need them now. You will need them in the process of joining the EU.

We are asking you to show respect to our war dead. We don't think it's too much to ask.

Sergiy Sydorenko

European Pravda, Editor