- Poland expressed concern that Russia would take military action apart from the war in Ukraine.
- Polish lawmakers told Insider that countries need to stop importing Russian oil and gas to truly isolate Putin.
- But they expressed strong disagreement with NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict.
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WARSAW, POLAND — A crush on Russia’s economy is needed to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin from taking military action outside of Ukraine, a scenario that could potentially spark a much larger war, Polish lawmakers have warned.
“There are fears that Russia might go further if we don’t stop the invasion of Ukraine,” Magda Bejat, a member of the Polish parliament for the Left Together party (Partia Razem), told Insider. “Among many experts and politicians, there is a belief that Putin does what he does because of the lack of reaction to what he did in Georgia, to what he did in Crimea. And that he felt he could get away with anything… confident in the money he used to buy some western politicians and influence some western politicians and discourse… We are also dependent on fossil fuels from Russia, so he felt he could do anything whatever he wants.”
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, and in 2014 seized by force the strategically important Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, a stronghold from which Russia has sent troops in its new war with Ukraine.
“The belief that Putin will stop if we make him our friend” demonstrates “political naivety on the part of Western politicians,” Beyjat said, adding: “He will not stop. We don’t think it will stop. That’s why we’re pushing so hard on very tough sanctions against Putin’s Russia today.”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has made similar warnings in recent days.
“We should have no illusions: this could only be the beginning,” Morawiecki wrote in the Financial Times in late February. “Tomorrow Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, as well as Poland, could be next in line… The war that Putin unleashed against Ukraine is also a battle for the soul of the West.”
As a result of Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Russia has already faced a series of historic devastating economic sanctions that have driven the ruble to record lows. Russia has taken retaliatory steps. But Bizhat stressed the need for countries to stop importing Russian gas and confiscate all the wealth of Russian oligarchs in order to truly isolate Putin.
Putin is a “hooligan,” and “you can’t talk about peace with a bully,” Biejat said. She added that the Russian president would have to face a response in “his own language”, which in this case would have to be “economic violence”.
The US decided this week to completely ban imports of Russian oil and gas, and the UK is mulling plans to do the same. Meanwhile, the EU has announced a plan to phase out Russian energy but is facing mounting pressure to take more substantial and immediate action. The US is far less dependent on Russian oil and gas than the EU, which President Joe Biden acknowledged when he announced the ban.
“This is the price of peace and we must be able to pay it,” Beizhat said of the need to ban Russian oil and gas. The West and other countries need to invest in renewables in the long term to end authoritarian leaders like Putin’s stranglehold on geopolitics, Beizhat said, but in the short term they may look to alternatives to Russian energy to offset the impact of the oil import ban. and gas.
Maciej Konieczny, a member of the Polish parliament who is also a member of the Left Together party, told Insider that Poland is “obviously” worried that Putin might take military action against other countries in the region. The West needs to respond harshly enough to Putin’s invasion, he said, to prevent a wider confrontation, as well as to avoid steps that could provoke “all-out war between NATO and Russia.”
“We are for all possible sanctions against Russia, including the cessation of gas, oil – all fossil fuels. We are for the supply of weapons to the Ukrainian people,” Konechny said, but added that there are “red lines” that must be avoided, “especially NATO’s direct involvement in the world.”
Accordingly, both Bezhat and Konechny said they oppose NATO’s creation of a no-fly zone, although they understand why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly asked for it.
A no-fly zone would require NATO to intercept and likely shoot down Russian warplanes in Ukrainian airspace, and would effectively require the alliance, including the US, to participate in the war in Ukraine.
Biezhat said she would also ask NATO to intervene if she was in the same boat as Zelenskiy as Russian airstrikes hit Ukrainian cities. “I absolutely understand the position of the Zelensky and Ukrainian governments,” Bezhat said. “But as a NATO border country, we believe that this decision should not be taken lightly.”
She warned that the establishment of a no-fly zone could be the catalyst for a “huge conflict” on a scale we can hardly imagine. NATO is an alliance of 30 countries, including nuclear powers such as the US, that operates on the principle of collective defense – considering an attack on one as an attack on all.
“NATO’s direct participation in the war is a risk not only of a world war, but also of a nuclear conflict,” Konechny said.