Friday, March 29, 2024

Poland, Sweden Warn Europe of War with Russia


Poland, Sweden Warn Europe of War with Russia
Stefan J. Bos


Poland and Sweden have warned Europe to prepare for war with Russia and said that nobody should feel safe if Moscow defeats Ukraine.

Their warnings came after Ukraine’s air force announced Friday it had shot down 58 drones and 26 missiles, while Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said energy infrastructure had been damaged in six regions.

Ukraine’s national energy company has announced emergency blackouts in the west, center, and east of the country due to “massive Russian attack on Ukrainian power plants overnight.”

Power provider Ukrenergo said the measures occur in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kirovograd, and it urged consumers to limit electricity use.

It came as Ukraine’s newly appointed commander-in-chief, Gen Oleksandr Syrskiy, admitted in a rare interview that Russia was outgunning Ukrainian forces “about six to one” on the front line.

“The defense forces are now performing tasks along the entire vast front line, with little or no weapons and ammunition,” he warned in an interview with the Ukrinform news agency.

General Syrskyi said Ukraine had lost territory it would “undoubtedly have retained” with “a sufficient number of air defense systems and artillery shells” and said the country hoped to receive more Western missiles soon.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed concern about the attacks, saying that if Russia defeats Ukraine, nobody in Europe will be able to feel safe. “I don’t want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past,” he told European media. “It’s real, and it started over two years ago” when Russia’s military invaded Ukraine.

Tusk, a former president of the European Union’s decision-making European Council, said Russian President Vladimir Putin had already blamed Ukraine for the recent Islamic on the Crocus City Hall near Moscow that killed at least 137 people. He said Putin “evidently feels the need to justify increasingly violent attacks on civil targets in Ukraine” with false accusations.

He noted that Russia had attacked Kyiv, the capital, with hypersonic missiles in daylight for the first time earlier this week.

Regardless of whether Joe Biden or Donald J. Trump won November’s U.S. presidential election, he argued Europe would become a more attractive partner to Washington if it became more self-sufficient militarily.

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