2022-02-22 11:14 update: 2022-02-25, 17:22
Mariusz Błaszczak Photo PAP/Darek Delmanowicz
Poland's defence minister said on Tuesday he expected "serious, not symbolic sanctions" against Russia, while confirming that Russian forces had entered two self-declared people's republics in eastern Ukraine.
Mariusz Blaszczak said only serious sanctions could "halt the rebuilding of the Russian empire by (Russian President - PAP) Vladimir Putin."
Putin signed a decree on Monday recognising the separatist breakaway 'people's republics' of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Putin and the republics' leaders also signed an agreement on friendship, cooperation and mutual aid with Russia. The Reuters news agency also reported that Putin had given the order for Russian forces to enter eastern Ukraine.
Speaking on public radio, Blaszczak said: "We can confirm as was publically reported by the president of Russia, that Russian forces have gone into the self-declared republics, and so have de facto breached Ukraine's border, international law has been de facto breached." He added that "there is no consent to this type of activity."
The defence minister went on to say that the reaction of the Polish government would be an expression of its opposition to the move and pointed out that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had called for a sitting of the European Council and that Andrzej Duda, Poland's president, had talked to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
"We expect sanctions and serious sanctions, not symbolic (ones)," he said. "Only serious sanctions can halt the rebuilding of the Russian empire by Vladimir Putin.
"If sanctions are only symbolic in nature, they will only embolden the aggressor," he continued.
Blaszczak also referred to historical experience, saying the reaction to Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula had been too weak, and "that's why today we have a further stage, and as the late (Polish President - PAP) Lech Kaczynski said in 2008 in Georgia: 'today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, then the Baltic states and after that Poland.'
"We do not consent to that type of negligence or that type of emboldening the aggressor," Blaszczak said. (PAP)
