Home · World · Sep 14 archive
Nato would defeat Russia quickly if ‘we took our gloves off’, says Poland
Confirmed
In Short: Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has stated that NATO would defeat Russia quickly if attacked, citing the alliance's air superiority and combined defense budgets exceeding Russia's.
Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has stated that NATO would defeat Russia quickly if attacked, according to reports from Kyiv Post and Dagens.com. Speaking at the Yalta European Strategy annual meeting in Kyiv, Sikorski highlighted NATO's roughly 2,500 aircraft and its overwhelming edge in air power.
Sikorski also noted that the combined defense budgets of the Baltic states and Nordic countries alone now exceed Russia's, according to Kyiv Post. He suggested that if Ukrainians had knocked out roughly half of Russia's refining capacity in six months, European militaries could finish the other half in six weeks.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Sikorski of 'Russophobia of the brain' and claimed he had said Poland could quickly defeat Russia, according to Kyiv Post. However, Sikorski was discussing a potential conflict between Russia and NATO, not a one-on-one war between Poland and Russia.
Poland's top diplomat used the podium of an international security conference in the Ukrainian capital to lay out, in blunter language than any allied minister has used this year, how a conventional war between NATO and Russia would actually go, according to Dagens.com. The Kremlin did not sit well with a single line from a NATO foreign minister in Kyiv.
Speculation has abounded that Moscow is plotting to attack NATO, claims that the country has denied. Several sources familiar with the discussions told that Ratcliffe had made the visit to warn Russia against an attack on NATO. Poland's foreign minister said that the alliance had 'overwhelming air superiority' over Moscow, and Poland could knock out half of Russia's refining capacity in a matter of weeks, according to The Independent.
What's confirmed
- According to Kyiv Post, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told the Yalta European Strategy annual meeting in Kyiv on Saturday that the alliance would “defeat Russia quite quickly” if attacked, citing NATO’s roughly 2,500 aircraft and what he called an overwhelming edge in air power.
- If Ukrainians had knocked out roughly half of Russia’s refining capacity in six months, he said, European militaries could finish the other half in six weeks.
- Sikorski also noted that the combined defense budgets of the Baltic states and Nordic countries alone now exceed Russia’s.
- “If Russia attacked us and we took our gloves off, I think we would defeat Russia quite quickly. We have overwhelming superiority over Russia in air power. General, correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s something like 2,500 aircraft,” Sikorski said during a Sept. 12 discussion at the annual Yalta European Strategy meeting in Kyiv.
What's still developing
- Zakharova’s post, republished the next morning by Russian state outlet Sputnik, was Moscow’s sharpest reply yet to a NATO foreign minister’s public wartime assessment.
- Sikorski also compared Europe’s potential ability to strike Russia’s energy infrastructure with Ukraine’s ongoing campaign against Russian refineries.
- Że w wypadku rosyjskiej agresji na NATO, dzięki przewadze w powietrzu, lotnictwo europejskiej części NATO byłoby w stanie, nawet bez udziału USA, zniszczyć połowę rosyjskich rafinerii szybciej niż Ukraina.
- Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, initiating the ongoing war.] Ret.
- “Even without the US it’s still overwhelming, and I haven’t checked recently how many F-35s and JASSMs and all the deep-strike capabilities we have.” He went further to say that Poland could knock out half of Russia’s refining capacity in a matter of weeks.