WARSAW

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Sunday that Russia will only engage seriously in peace negotiations with Ukraine once further economic pressure makes President Vladimir Putin realize that continuing the war cannot deliver his objectives.

In an interview with Polish news network TVP World, Sikorski said a lasting settlement would only be possible when Russia’s political elite accepts that the invasion of Ukraine was a mistake and that rebuilding an empire through force is impossible.

“This is the problem with dictators,” he said. “When someone has been in power for (over) 20 years, very few people tell him what reality actually looks like.”

Sustained and coordinated economic sanctions remain central to changing the Kremlin’s calculations, Sikorski added, noting that Poland has been among the strongest advocates within the European Union for tightening restrictions on Russia’s financial sector, energy exports and access to Western technology.

He said sanctions targeting Russian oil revenues combined with limits on insurance, shipping and price caps have significantly reduced Moscow’s fiscal room for maneuver, even if the effects take time to translate into political decisions.

He also noted that Russia’s growing economic reliance on politically unstable partners, including Venezuela, illustrates the long-term costs of isolation from Western markets. He said cooperation between Moscow and Caracas in the energy sector reflects Russia’s shrinking pool of economic partners and exposes it to additional risks stemming from sanctions, logistical constraints and volatile global oil prices.

Sikorski went on to say that any proposal allowing Russia to retain territory in eastern Ukraine would be rewarding aggression, noting that the Kremlin may view demands limited to Donbas as a concession, adding that Moscow’s territorial gains over the past year would still leave Russia decades away from conquering Ukraine in full.

He also warned against freezing the conflict without durable security guarantees for Kyiv, adding that Ukraine must be able to integrate with the EU and to defend its borders once the fighting ends.

“Otherwise, we have a recipe for another war,” he said.

Sikorski also rejected claims that Poland has been sidelined from international discussions on Ukraine, pointing to Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s recent participation in a summit in Berlin.

Turning to transatlantic security, Sikorski said Europe must strengthen its defense industry regardless of the outcome of the next US presidential election and warned that a potential US military focus on Asia could limit Washington’s ability to support Europe.

“By the end of this decade, we must have armed forces that Putin will not dare to test,” he said.

“President (Donald) Trump was right from the beginning in saying that Europe had benefited from the peace dividend for too long,” he said. “We heard that message and doubled our defense spending.”​​​​​​​

Sikorski added that the presence of US troops in Poland benefits both countries, noting that Warsaw pays about $15,000 per year per American soldier and that maintaining forces in Poland is cheaper for the US than at home. He said Washington is planning further investments in US bases in Poland worth hundreds of millions of dollars.