Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in an interview published on May 25 that the U.S. has told Russia that if it uses nuclear weapons, there will be an American response using conventional weapons on Russian forces in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly made nuclear threats against Ukraine and the West since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The threats have failed to materialize, and Russia continues to wage its all-out war without its nuclear arsenal.
"The Americans have told the Russians that if you explode a nuke, even if it doesn't kill anybody, we will hit all your targets (positions) in Ukraine with conventional weapons, we'll destroy all of them," Sikorski told the Guardian.
Sikorski added that both China and India have warned Russia not to use nuclear weapons.
"And it's no child's play because if that taboo (of using nuclear weapons) were also to be breached, like the taboo of not changing borders by force, China knows that Japan and (South) Korea would go nuclear, and presumably they don't want that."
Sikorski also said that he supports ending the restrictions on Ukraine's use of Western weapons to hit targets in Russia, echoing similar comments made recently by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and leading U.S. lawmakers.
While Poland has upped its military spending to 4% of its GDP, Sikorski said there is still more work to be done, and many other European countries have yet to catch up.
Before Russia's full-scale war, Poland mostly focused its defense spending on advanced weapons technology, Sikorski said.
"We are only now rediscovering that actually you just need millions of shells. You need large volumes of low-tech stuff as well."
"It is obvious that Europe is lagging behind, and the EU's defense and technological and industrial base suffers from years of underinvestment," he added.
Chris York
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