Poland has urged the west not to be cowed by Russian threats of retaliation over its military support to Ukraine, and said European states could help Kyiv’s mobilisation drive by ending their benefits payments to Ukrainian men of draft age.
“I don’t think that there is anything that [Vladimir] Putin is not doing that he will do in response to what we do,” Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said of Russia’s veteran leader. “I would be very surprised if he was mad enough to start a war with Nato. And his threats of using nuclear weapons have also, so far, been hollow,” Mr Sikorski told the Ukrainska Pravda news outlet in comments published on Monday.
Ukraine wants to be allowed to use western-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russian territory against airfields and other facilities involved in daily, and often devastating, bomb strikes on Ukrainian towns, cities and critical infrastructure.
Several countries back such a move, but US approval is seen as crucial to presenting a united western front on the issue. Washington has so far opposed deeper strikes inside Russia over fears that it could intensify Europe’s biggest war since 1945.
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The Kremlin says Kyiv’s use of western missiles to strike deep inside Russia would be tantamount to the west’s direct involvement in the war. At the same time, Moscow is hitting Ukraine with drones and missiles supplied by its allies Iran and North Korea.
Ukraine’s forces are outnumbered and outgunned by Russia, and Kyiv’s mobilisation drive has been slow to produce results. Mr Putin ordered on Monday that another 180,000 soldiers be added to the ranks of Russia’s active servicemen, taking the total to 1.5 million in an overall military force of 2.38 million.
European Union statistics show that more than 4.1 million Ukrainians had temporary protection in the bloc as of July, about one in five of whom were adult men. Under martial law most men aged between 18 and 60 are barred from leaving Ukraine, but many have used legal loopholes and corruption to go abroad.
“There is a simple way to help Ukraine – stop giving help to Ukrainians who are subject to mobilisation,” Mr Sikorski told a conference in Kyiv at the weekend. “It’s not a human right to be paid to avoid the draft, to defend your country. We in Poland don’t do it,” he added, noting that his country allows draft-age Ukrainian men to live and work there but – unlike many EU states – does not give them benefits.
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said he supported Mr Sikorski’s idea. “It’s time really to raise the question of the European Union developing programmes to return Ukrainians home,” he said.
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