- Sarah Rainsford, in Kharkov, by Paul Kirby.
- bbc news
image source, Hannibal Hanschke/EPA-EFE
Mr Tusk (R) praised the change in mentality in European allies, but said the next two years were critical.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned that Europe is in a “pre-war era” and that Ukraine must not lose to Russia in the interests of the whole continent.
He said the war was “no longer a concept of the past,” adding: “The war is real and it started more than two years ago.”
His comments came after Russia launched a major attack on Ukraine's energy systems on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Russia has “no offensive intentions” toward NATO countries.
He said the idea that Russia, which has one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals, would attack Poland, the Baltic states and the Czech Republic, which are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance unlike Ukraine, is “absolute nonsense”. Stated.
But he warned that if Ukraine used Western F-16 jets from other countries' airfields, they would become “legitimate targets wherever they are.”
After Russia launched an all-out war in Ukraine in February 2022, relations with the West fell to their lowest level since the worst days of the Cold War.
Russia's recent attack on Ukraine used around 100 missiles and drones and caused a partial power outage in some areas.
This was the second attack of its kind in a week in which Russia launched multiple weapons simultaneously to overwhelm Ukraine's defenses.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the tactic “missile terrorism” and warned that an attack on the hydropower plant could cause a major environmental disaster.
The mayor of Kharkiv, whose industry is struggling due to power outages as small businesses rely on generators, told the BBC that damage to the power grid was “very serious” and full recovery could take two months. He said that there is a sex.
Mr. Tusk appealed for urgent military aid to Ukraine and warned that the next two years of war will decide everything, adding: “We are living in the most critical period since the end of World War II.”
image source, EPA-EFE/Jakub Simchuk/KPRP
Tusk (R) and Polish President Andrzej Duda met with President Biden at the White House earlier this month.
He announced a tough intervention in Europe's security, noting that Russia had attacked Kiev with a hypersonic missile in daylight for the first time.
He said Putin's attempt to blame Ukraine without evidence for the jihadist attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall was an attempt by the Russian president to “justify increasingly violent attacks against civilian targets inside Ukraine.” “It clearly shows that there is a need for it,” he said.
In his first interview with European media since returning as Poland's prime minister at the end of 2023, Tusk appealed to leaders across the continent to strengthen their defences.
He said Europe didn't need to create a “parallel structure to NATO” but that the continent could become more self-sufficient militarily, regardless of who wins the US presidential election in November. He said it would make China a more attractive partner for the United States.
Poland currently spends 4% of its economic output on defense, while other European countries have yet to meet the NATO target of 2%.
image source, Omar Marquez/Anadolu
Tusk said Poland currently spends 4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense and called on other EU countries to meet the 2% target.
Former European Council President Tusk warned that Europe needed to prepare for war in advance.
He revealed that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had asked EU leaders to stop using the word “war” in their summit statements because he did not want his people to feel threatened.
Tusk said he responded that war was no longer an abstract concept in his homeland of Europe, warning that “literally any scenario is possible.”
He added: “I know this sounds devastating, especially for the younger generation, but we have to mentally get used to the arrival of a new era. The pre-war era. ” he said.
He said that when he first served as Polish prime minister from 2007 to 2014, European leaders outside of Poland and the Baltic states did not recognize Russia as a potential threat.
Mr. Tusk was more optimistic about what he called a real revolution in the psyche of Europe as a whole.
Meanwhile, General Oleksandr Shirsky, Ukraine's newly appointed commander-in-chief, admitted in a rare interview that Russia outnumbered Ukrainian forces on the front lines by “about 6 to 1.”
He said Ukraine had lost territory that it “definitely could have held” had it been supplied with sufficient ammunition and air defense systems, and said the situation in some combat zones was “tense”. .
The Polish prime minister's latest warning echoes what the Baltic neighbors have been saying for years. If Russia can get away with invading, occupying, and annexing all of Ukraine's oblasts, Putin will launch similar attacks against countries like them that were once part of Moscow's orbit. Are they concerned about how long it will take to decide to do so?
Per capita defense spending is significantly higher in NATO countries bordering Russia than in Western Europe.
President Vladimir Putin, who critics say was just “re-elected” to a fifth term in a “sham election”, said recently that he has no plans to attack NATO countries.
But Baltic leaders such as Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kalas say the Russian government's word cannot be trusted. In the days leading up to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Western warnings of an impending invasion as “propaganda” and “Western exaggeration.” .
