He said that nobody in Europe knows what Trump’s plan actually is, they’re unable to assemble the approximately 100,000 troops that a prolonged peacekeeping mission in Ukraine would require, and Poland still remains reluctant to participate in any such mission even if it’s heavily pressured to do so.
Chief of Poland’s National Security Bureau Dariusz Lukowski gave an interview to Radio ZET on Monday about his country’s position towards the Ukrainian Conflict. According to him, it shouldn’t send peacekeepers to Ukraine, but this still can’t be ruled out in the future despite Prime Minister Donald Tusk once again explicitly saying that it won’t do so. That’s because there’d be a lot of pressure on Poland to get involved if others dispatch their peacekeepers there first, but he’s still unsure whether it’ll happen.
He assessed that Europe as a whole doesn’t have the 100,000 troops ready that would be required for patrolling the over 1,000-kilometer-long frontline for the decade that he expects such a mission to last at minimum. Even if Poland doesn’t participate on the ground, however, he said that it could still “secure the airspace over Ukraine. A form of air policing. Aircraft based in Poland could patrol the airspace of Ukraine.” Such scenarios would naturally depend on the outcome of the Russian-US talks though.
About that, Lukowski said that new US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth didn’t brief his hosts about the details of Trump’s envisaged peace plan during last week’s visit nor request them to participate in any peacekeeping mission. He added that “We tried to ask the American side such a question (about their negotiating strategy), because we are interested in what types of instruments they would like to use to convince Putin to adopt such and such a solution and not others, but no specifics were given.”
Another point that this top security official made was that outgoing President Andrzej Duda “tried to convey in a very clear way how Poland perceives Russian issues, that Russia cannot be trusted”, but he didn’t say whether he thought that Hegseth will listen to what the Polish leader had to say.
Lukowski continued by claiming that Russia could attack Poland at any moment but said that he doesn’t believe that the US would betray Poland even if that happens by abandoning it to face Russia all on its own.
Even so, he warned that Poland still needs three years “to have the capabilities to effectively resist or deter a potential adversary from attacking our country”, likely in a nod to the “East Shield” part of the “European Defense Line” that his country is building along its borders with Kaliningrad and Belarus.
In any case, Lukowski said that his country’s plan is to survive for 2-3 weeks until support can arrive from its allies, which interestingly suggests a much longer delay in NATO aid than most observers expect.
Perhaps the top takeaway from his interview though was his admission that Poland failed in its plans to produce its own ammo.
In his words, “It's bad. In many areas we don't have independence. This is a classic situation that we observe in Ukraine and a lesson that needs to be learned. If we do not have our own potential, guaranteed supplies, others will decide on the pace and manner of conducting war.”
He then said that he doesn’t understand why this problem persists and warned about its consequences.
Lukowski’s interview confirmed Poland’s hesitation to directly involve itself in the Ukrainian Conflict exactly as Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski signaled last November when warning that Zelensky wants to provoke a war between them and Russia.
It’s also out of the loop when it comes to the ongoing Russian-US peace talks despite Hegseth describing Poland as America’s “model ally” during last week’s visit.
Poland therefore isn’t expected to make any dramatic or rash moves for the time being.
