“It is not we, the West, who should fear a clash with Putin, but the other way around,” Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said.

A war between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and NATO would end with Moscow’s “inevitable defeat,” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said Thursday.

"It is not we, the West, who should fear a clash with Putin, but the other way around,” Sikorski said during a speech to the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament. “It is worth reminding about this, not to increase the sense of threat in the Russians, because NATO is a defensive pact, but to show that an attack by Russia on any of the members of the Alliance would end in its [Russia’s] inevitable defeat.”

Sikorski, who was laying out Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s vision for the new government’s foreign policy, said Russia’s military and economic potential “pales in comparison to that of the West,” as NATO has three times as many military personnel, three times the aerial resources and four times as many ships as Russia.

Western allies and top military officials have become increasingly worried about a potential spillover of violence from Putin’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine — as the Russian leader continues to issue veiled nuclear threats toward the West and stashes atomic weapons in Belarus, which borders NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

  • @IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    117 months ago

    A Russia - NATO war is extremely unlikely to become the type of global war that WWII was. There’s not anywhere near enough strength among Russia’s close allies, and China is extremely unlikely to go full out war with NATO. Their economy is too centered around being the manufacturing base for the rest of the developed world. They’re more likely to grab a chunk of eastern Russia while Russia is unable to do anything about it.

    • VaultBoyNewVegas
      link
      fedilink
      English
      37 months ago

      Why do you think WWIII would be like II? WWIII will probably be nuclear and strength of allies counts for fuck all when M.A.D is in involved. I wouldn’t doubt Russia would use nukes, I wouldn’t doubt the NATO countries that do would retaliate and I wouldn’t doubt the allies of Russia with nukes would strike back too.

      • @IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        77 months ago

        The first “W” in “WWII” stands for “World”. It was used to describe the wars because there were multiple countries on both sides that were roughly at parity with each other when it comes to military power. In a NATO vs Russia scenario, there aren’t military peers on both sides. NATO has multiple members that could likely win a war against Russia on their own, and Russia has no one.

        It wouldn’t be a “World War”. It would be Russia lashing out one final time before it ceased to exist.

        • @fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          17 months ago

          Depending on politics and various other factors, I could see the Kremlin getting support from Iran, China, and N Korea.