“Obviously that’s hard to deny. This is a crime that has the hallmarks of genocide, especially when you look at the context of various conversations that are being held,” Duda said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Dana Bash in Warsaw, Poland.
Duda said Russian propaganda about Moscow’s goal of “denazifying” Ukraine shows that the country is looking for a false pretext “to carry out a massacre.”
“The fact that civilian residents of Ukraine are being killed best shows what the goal is [the] The Russian invasion is,” he said through a translator. “The goal of this invasion is simply to wipe out the Ukrainian nation.”
Duda, who was first elected Poland’s president in 2015 and has served through three US administrations, leads the country as it plays a key role in helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia, struggling with an influx of Ukrainian refugees and on further sanctions urges Russia and supplies arms to Ukraine.
Millions of Ukrainians have fled across the country’s border to Poland. As a member of the NATO alliance, Poland was one of the countries where US and NATO troops were deployed to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank to deter Russia.
There were also some challenges. Ukraine was looking for Polish MiG-29 fighter jets to help fight Russia, but efforts to get the planes to Ukraine fell through after Poland publicly suggested they could be shipped to the US via a German air base in Ukraine to provide Ukraine. The US said such a plan was unworkable and the planes were not dispatched.
In the interview, Duda questioned the usefulness of diplomatic efforts with Russia at this point in the conflict. He said he was not surprised by the criticism leveled at French President Emmanuel Macron by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki this week, when Morawiecki said “nobody negotiated with Hitler.”
“There is no point in dialogue with Russia,” said Duda. “You have to put very tough conditions on Vladimir Putin. You have to say: ‘If you don’t meet these conditions, we have nothing to discuss.’ We will firmly support Ukraine, we will strengthen the sanctions regime, because if you have a dialogue that doesn’t work, it’s just a game to buy Russia time.”
As part of those terms, Duda called for additional sanctions on Russia and its energy sector, and bemoaned Europe’s continued dependence on Russian energy despite crippling sanctions being imposed on other sectors.
“The sanctions regime should be strengthened. I have no doubts about that,” said Duda. “Obviously this is a very complex task. … The problem, however, is that for some countries this is fundamental.”
Duda pointed out that Poland is opposed to the construction of gas pipelines between Russia and Germany, saying they are “political projects” aimed at bypassing Poland and the Baltic countries. He called for the new Nord Stream II pipeline to be dismantled.
“Russia is not just blackmailing Germany, Russia is actually blackmailing all of Europe,” said Duda. “The fact that we say it is impossible to embargo Russian gas is not possible to immediately embargo Russian oil.”