Sikorski on funding ammunition for Ukraine, mobilisation of Ukrainians in Poland and historical disputes

Radosław Sikorski is Poland's longest-serving foreign minister 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.

Sergiy Sydorenko, editor of European Pravda, discussed these topics with the minister at the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting. The video interview is available in English. You can read the full text version in the article – Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski: "A Ukrainian barber cuts my hair in Warsaw. I ask him, shouldn't you be defending Ukraine?"

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 the restrictions on striking deep into Russia on.

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.

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 to defend ourselves and to down Russian drones and missiles. This operation requires some Alliance collaboration.

As for the Czech initiative to procure artillery shells for Ukraine, 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.

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.

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.

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.

Regarding the creation of the Ukrainian Legion in Poland that I announced, we don't yet have enough volunteers to make up a brigade.

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

We should not play politics with our history. There are painful moments in every country's history. But there is also a Christian duty to bury the dead.

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.

When the victims are given Christian burial, then it will be for historians.

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.