Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has welcomed US President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike targets in Russia with long-range ATACMS missiles.
That came as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticised German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “no one will stop Putin with phone calls”.
Sikorski praised Biden’s decision on November 17 to allow Ukraine to use the ATACMS rockets as an appropriate response to the Kremlin enlisting the help of North Korean troops in the war and to the mass Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian territory.
ATACMS rockets can reach targets in the range of up to 300km, whereas the HIMARS missiles Ukraine has been firing up until now only have a range of 80km.
“With the entry into the war of North Korea troops and the massive attack of Russian missiles, President Biden responded in a language that V Putin understands,” Sikorski wrote on his X account, adding that “strength deters” and “weakness provokes”.
On November 16 and 17, Russia launched a major aerial assault on Ukraine deploying ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported early on November 17 that Russia had fired a total of 120 missiles and 90 drones at Ukraine, targeting energy infrastructure across the country.
Tusk, referring to a recent phone call between Scholz and Putin, wrote on X: “No one will stop Putin with phone calls. The attack last night, one of the biggest in this war, has proved that telephone diplomacy cannot replace real support from the whole West for Ukraine.
“The next weeks will be decisive, not only for the war itself but also for our future.”
Scholz and Putin held the conversation, the first such a call between the pair in two years, to discuss ways to end the war. The German Chancellor called on the Russian President to withdraw his troops and urged “Russia to be willing to negotiate with Ukraine with the aim of achieving a just and lasting peace”.
Tusk’s words marked Warsaw’s irritation with Berlin over its stance on the war. Poland had consistently criticised Germany during the reign of former chancellor Angela Merkel for being too accommodating towards Russia and has called on Germany to do more to help Ukraine since the war started in 2022.
Poland has been acting as a hub for NATO military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine and has donated a large amount of military hardware to Kyiv over the past two years.
Warsaw’s stance on support for Ukraine targeting Russia with missiles from the West came despite the fact that should Moscow decide to retaliate against NATO nations, Poland would be easily within the striking range of Russian rocket attacks.
