In a kind of historical regression, one of Vladimir Putin’s trusted men, his advisor Nikolai Patrushev, got involved this Tuesday in accusations and criticisms with the Polish authorities due to the latest incidents with Russian drones on the border with Ukraine and in Polish territory and assured that Poland would cease to exist “in two or three days” if this country attacked Russia.
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“In the event that Poland participates in military actions against Russia, our country will use the entire arsenal of forces and means at its disposal and the Polish state will cease to exist in two or three days,” said Patrushev in an interview with the newspaper Argumenti y Fakti. Putin’s collaborator did not specify whether the expression “the entire arsenal” also includes the nuclear one that Russia has.
In 1939 Nazi Germany from the west and the USSR from the east occupied Poland
The territory of Poland was occupied in 1939, in the early stages of World War II. Applying the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which Moscow and Berlin signed in August of that year, first it was invaded from the west by Nazi Germany and then, from the east, by the Soviet Union. The Red Army offensive, between September and October, lasted just over two weeks.
With his loud statements Patrushev, who between 2008 and 2024 was secretary of the powerful Security Council of Russia and before that director of the FSB since 1999, was responding to other statements by the Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, who assured that Warsaw has air superiority compared to Moscow and that in case of conflict it would defeat Moscow.
“The head of Polish diplomacy clearly evaluates the military power of our country as an amateur, not wanting to understand that during the special military operation (in Ukraine) the Russian Armed Forces are not using all their potential in any case,” Patrushev pointed out.
Putin has said several times that Russia has “no reason” to attack Europe, Patrushev assures
In his opinion, Sikorski “does not want to hear” Putin’s words, who has said that Russia is not a threat and that it has “no reason” to undertake military actions against European states.
On Monday Sikorski said that Poland will have to strengthen its security due to Russian provocations on the border with Ukraine and inside Polish territory.
The Polish army had recovered another drone, probably of Russian origin, in the coastal area of Rusinowo (north), the Polish Defense Minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, reported the day before.
Attack on a Ukrainian train two kilometers from the Polish border
One day earlier, on Sunday, Moscow attacked a Ukrainian train with a drone on a line used by European politicians. The incident occurred two kilometers from the Dorohusk-Yagodyn border crossing, which connects Ukraine with Poland.
The attack caused no casualties, but minutes before another train had passed through the same place carrying a group of European politicians, such as former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who were returning to Poland from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Several European leaders and politicians interpreted the attack as an attempt to intimidate them. “It was clearly a message directed at the Western world” not to travel to that country to show their support, said the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, who urged her partners “not to be intimidated.”
In Moscow, other statements by Sikorski have also drawn attention in recent days. During the Yalta European Strategy international security conference, held in Kyiv on Friday, September 11, the Polish minister said that NATO should organize aggressive military exercises near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to force the Kremlin to withdraw some of its forces deployed in Ukraine.
Sikorski noted that currently in Kaliningrad “there are practically no” Russian troops because Moscow assumes that NATO will not act.
In response, one of the Russian Deputy Foreign Ministers, Alexander Grushko, pointed out that these words create threats to Poland itself. And he added that the head of Polish diplomacy must “do everything possible to strengthen Poland’s security.” The Kremlin, for its part, stated that Russia is taking the necessary measures to ensure the security of its Baltic region.
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