Poland Predicts Murkier Russian Escalation, Not Full Invasion
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Poland’s foreign minister said that Russia is preparing a significant escalation this year, warning that President Vladimir Putin may be looking for a pretext to justify a new mobilization.
“Russia is cooking up something big this year,” Radosław Sikorski said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, appearing alongside his Romanian counterpart, Oana Țoiu. Sikorski said he could not name his sources but stressed that there were many. He raised the possibility that Putin could stage a false-flag operation to convince Russians they are under attack, creating grounds for mobilization.
Sikorski said Belarusians were “very worried” about being pulled into the war and pointed to Russia’s potential interest in securing a land corridor to Kaliningrad through Lithuania, as well as its focus on large Russian-speaking populations in border areas of Estonia and Latvia.#
A “less clear-cut” escalation, not full invasion
Sikorski called a full-scale invasion “crazy” for Russia, predicting instead a murkier form of escalation — one that would also complicate any NATO response under Article 5, the alliance’s mutual-defense clause. He said Poland would defend itself if necessary, as it has done before, and tied recent Russian strikes on Polish border crossings to a broader strategy aimed at cutting Ukraine off from Western supplies.
Despite the strain on Russia’s economy, Sikorski said Moscow could sustain its war effort for another year or two unless Kyiv manages to destroy more than half of Russia’s refining capacity. He said Moscow retains options including further mobilization, a harsh winter and continued strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, though he added that Kyiv has “cards to play” as well.
Sikorski backs US troop presence in Poland
On the prospect of a permanent U.S. military base in Poland, Sikorski said it would eventually house one brigade, in addition to the roughly 7,000 U.S. troops currently rotating through the country. He said around 10,000 American soldiers would be enough to reassure Poland without “threatening” Russia, and voiced hope that President Donald Trump would follow through on his commitment on the matter.
