Polish PM says EU playing 'roulette' with sanctions amid Russia-Ukraine war

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Saturday lambasted the European Union for playing roulette in the Russia-Ukraine war with sanctions that it first imposes whilst Russian troops bomb the Ukrainian cities, and later resorted to “not going over the top.”

Taking to his official Twitter handle, Morawiecki said: “Every day hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians wake up in fear of being bombed by the [Russian] jets. Meanwhile, Europe is playing roulette: First, it announces tougher sanctions, then a day later it says let’s not go over the top.”

The Polish Prime Minister then condemned Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for setting Ukraine ablaze. “Europe then wonders if it has enough fire extinguisher,” he said, taking a direct swipe at the EU and allied nations for not taking robust measures to stop the war. 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has been a strong critic of the regime of the Russian Federation as the two nations often indulge in WWII accusation rhetorics. On one occasion, Morawiecki had accused Putin of “deliberately” lying about Poland “on numerous occasions” after he made comments that it was Poland that started WWII. Other times, the Polish leader lambasted Russia for “having complete control over Belarus” and had called for an international ban on Russian athletes in sports.

The Kremlin meanwhile accuses Poland of starting the World War, adding that it was, in fact, the 1939 non-aggression deal between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that ended hostilities. After Moscow invaded Ukraine, Poland announced that it will completely do away with Russian oil and coal imports by the end of 2022 to reduce dependence on Russian energy. The country also asserted that the rest of Europe, including Germany, must scrap deals with Russia and stop “fuelling” Moscow’s war machine. 

Poland's Morawiecki has been calling out on West to offer more assistance to Ukraine 

Poland has been involved in the construction of a liquid gas terminal in Swinoujscie to receive deliveries from Qatar, the US, Norway, and other exporters to fulfil its gas demands. A new, Baltic pipeline bringing gas from Norway is also set to be inaugurated by the end of 2022. In a separate televised interview, Morawiecki also called on the West to offer assistance to Ukraine as it proposed sending fighter jets to counter the Russian assault on the Ukrainian civilian cities. Ahead of an all-out invasion, Poland had sent repeated warnings to the EU to take more stringent measures to deter Russia. 

”I see the Russian troops regrouping, reorganising. I think that they will try to surround the Ukrainian forces quite soon — in the Donbass region in particular. And then having captured one-third of the land in Ukraine, they will want to negotiate from this very strong position," the Polish prime minister had told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview.

He had also slammed the West, stating, that it might “quickly become tired of the war in Ukraine". “Our public opinion will get tired of this war," he said. 

As Russian jets continued to bomb civilian infrastructure in Kyiv, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged NATO on numerous occasions to impose a no-fly zone over his country's airspace, as it would protect Ukraine and the countries of the alliance. NATO, heeding the intelligence cited by the United States military HQ Pentagon had deterred from such an act. The implementation of a no-fly zone would imply sending NATO planes to shoot down Russian ones, and that, said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, may trigger a WWIII. “We are not part of this conflict, and we have a responsibility to ensure it does not escalate and spread beyond Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told a news conference.

“We understand the desperation but we also believe that if we did that (a no-fly zone) we would end up with something that could lead to a full-fledged war in Europe involving much more countries and much more suffering,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.