Poland involved in seizing Russian money, says PM
Poland's prime minister has said the country has been "dealing" with the seizure of the Russian Federation's money on the grounds that it was earmarked for terrorist activities.
Morawiecki argued that Ukrainians have to be urgently given at least defensive weapons so that they could defend their homes, lives and families.
He explained that bigger support from the US should consist in the transfer of "Javelins, Stingers, all sorts of different defensive weapons, antitank, antiaircraft, antimissile, portable defence."
"These are weapons which are not threatening Russia. These are purely defensive weapons," Morawiecki said.
Morawiecki expressed his hope that with growing pressure from the West and the strong morale of Ukrainian soldiers, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his people would be ready to start real negotiations to have a ceasefire, withdraw Russian troops and end the war.
"This should be a precondition for further negotiations. The sanctions which we have adopted are the strongest ever, but, having said that, we have to prepare for even heavier sanctions. We have to cut off buying Russian gas and oil, because these are the main sources of hard currency for Putin, which he then turns into a war machine," he said.
Asked if Putin, in the event of his victory, could attack the Baltic countries, and perhaps also Poland and Moldova, Morawiecki replied: "Yes, I think that if they are not stopped in Ukraine, they will concentrate on other states to reestablish the Russian empire: the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary — we all can be the next object of attack."
The Polish prime minister opted for permanent US troops to be stationed in Poland. "We have 10,000 American troops here, but we should be able to have a permanent base in Poland with 30 to 40,000 US troops," he said.
In Morawiecki's opinion, Putin, who is determined and sees the invasion of Ukraine as a failure, "is able to press the button and create another front."
"This is why we have been talking to our American and British allies, asking to get antimissile systems like the Patriot and Sky Sabre [the British air defence system]. We have placed these types of defensive weapons in key areas in Poland," he said.
According to Morawiecki, now it is important to confiscate the assets of Russian oligarchs and Putin himself.
"The freezing as such is not good enough, because frozen assets can grow in value. The money of the Russian sovereign wealth fund and the Russian bonds lodged in central banks of Western countries should be confiscated and put into a fund to reconstruct Ukraine after the war. Putin has to understand that he is already losing hundreds of billions of dollars - and if he does not stop, he will lose even more," he said.
Taking about Poland's proposal to create a Nato peacekeeping force in Ukraine, Morawiecki explained that such a mission, led by the Alliance and potentially other international organisations, would be "completely focused on defending innocent people" and could consist of both air and ground forces.
"A humanitarian peacekeeping mission has to be able to defend innocent people and not be attacked by Russian troops," he said.
He also pointed out the Polish proposal to set up a humanitarian zone in the western part of Ukraine as more and more people are fleeing the war there. "This would have to be a full mandate of Nato and potentially other international organizations," Morawiecki added.
He said that Ukraine, which has the biggest refugee crisis since the end of the Second World War, needs all sorts of humanitarian support and Poland is at the forefront of this crisis. "Poles and the Polish government opened our hearts and our doors to the Ukrainian people. We were able to help millions of women with children, to accommodate them in Poland," the prime minister said. (PAP)
