Poland’s Secretary of State Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski: ‘President Putin pays attention to what PM Modi tells him’ | India News

What is the purpose of your visit to India?

The purpose of my visit is two-fold. First, is the political consultations, which haven’t actually taken place since 2022, especially since last year we signed a strategic partnership when Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi was in Warsaw. And second, is the regional meeting of all Polish ambassadors who are accredited in Asian countries, which means that there are about 40 to 50 people altogether.

Last year, we agreed on the strategic partnership and action plan from 2024 to 2028, so we are trying to see where we are with the action plan. We discussed cooperation in education, political and economic sphere, technology, military and security, cyberspace, culture, tourism and investments. We also discussed the situation in our neighbourhoods, possible visits by Poland’s PM and Foreign Minister, participation in the AI summit among other issues. We discussed the Polish view of the situation in Europe, in Ukraine — there was a kind of complicated, comprehensive discussion.

Your visit comes days before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India. How do you view the Russian leader’s visit?

Well, we see it in the context that he is accused by the International Criminal Court of war crimes. We think that the war in Ukraine persists for almost four years because Putin and Russia invaded that country, which was a sovereign, independent country with borders acknowledged by the United Nations in 1991 and acknowledged also by the Russian Federation.

So, Putin’s claim that Ukraine doesn’t exist, it is not a State, it’s a little bit difficult for us to swallow, especially since we are also being threatened and attacked now by Russia. In the last few months, we have witnessed a number of sabotage attacks in Poland, arson and that was proven to be done by the people who were employed by the Russian military intelligence GRU… we have proof of that. We’ve, currently, detained 60 people who are accused of sabotage attacks. Some managed to flee. We had, and this is something India should sympathise with, we had an attempted terrorist attack… They wanted to blow up a fast-moving train… it did not succeed, and the perpetrators, whom we know by name and pictures, escaped to Belarus. So we treat Russia as a criminal regime.

Two months ago, on the night of September 9-10, they attacked us with drones. We had to use help from various NATO members, including Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. And we shot some of those drones, and we announced that, should they repeat the performance, be it by drones, ballistic or cruise missiles, we will certainly shoot all of them.

So it’s kind of just pre-war status now with Russia… Obviously, we think the visit of President Putin may not be quite appropriate. I think President Putin could decide today that he’s withdrawing Russian forces from the territory of Ukraine and the war stops…

We are hopeful that there will be peace in Ukraine, but… Ukraine has to remain sovereign and independent and not be told what they can or cannot do by a foreign country.

What is Poland doing in these difficult times?

We, as Poland, as European Union and NATO members, will support Ukraine because we think President Putin has hostile intentions towards us, and that’s why we are re-industrialising the EU, we are rebuilding our defence industry rapidly. We are rearming ourselves. We spent 4.8% of GDP on defence this year, which is 5th position out of 32 member states of NATO. We’ve got the third largest army in NATO now, after the US and Turkey. We are planning to increase the number of soldiers by a third of what we have now. We are spending considerable amounts of money on purchases… from tanks to helicopters to submarines.

We are building a drone and anti-drone army and a wall of defence. It’s not a physical wall. It’s a drone wall to stop the drones coming into us on the Eastern front — on the Baltic Sea — to stop Russian interference because they cut underwater cables. They cut electricity and telecommunication cables. We also have a gas pipeline from Norway to Poland, which needs protecting. We also have two LNG ports, one functional, one will be open next year…

So we are getting ready together with our allies, because we expect that the Russian provocation will intensify. We are discussing how to react more forcefully to any Russian incursions in the future.

But all of that can change if Putin moves the forces out, because Ukrainians don’t want war… They’re devastated by it now, by attacks on civilians every day. I spoke to the chief Ukrainian negotiator who was in Florida. They’ve suffered 500 attacks in Kyiv, civilians have been killed. There are huge attacks on energy infrastructure, so they would try to make Ukraine freeze in winter. That has to stop, otherwise, Ukrainians won’t give up, but they will live in horrible conditions.

How do you view Trump’s 28-point plan to end the war?

Well, the 28-point plan was strongly criticised by several nations in Europe and by a large number of Republican politicians, Mr. Trump’s supporters, because they thought it’s a Russian plan which doesn’t give any security whatsoever.

So from 28 points, some were removed, and we got to 19. In other words, the 28-point plan is dead. Now we’re talking about different plans Europeans came up with, together with us… So we now discuss, we’ll see what will be the final plan presented to Putin and to (Ukraine President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy.

President Zelenskyy basically said, I’m ready to sign a peace agreement. Mr. Putin says, I’m not ready.

I don’t want a ceasefire. I want a peace agreement…

So they hope there is going to be a plan, and I hope it will be internationally accepted, like the 20-point plan of peace in Gaza and it was accepted by the entire UN Security Council, which gives us hope that it may be possible to have it implemented…

President Trump may come up with something because he has a strange way of looking at problems which are unusual, but because they’re completely unusual and completely looking out of the box, they may work.

So we suspend our judgments. We are for peace.

Putin is the biggest obstacle to peace. Trump is trying to achieve peace, and he started with a very optimistic assessment that he can do it in a few days. Then he discovered that the reality is slightly more complex, and he now acknowledges that was a wrong assessment. Nevertheless, he wants to achieve peace, and we all want Trump to succeed in achieving peace, provided there’s peace which is not going to mean that in a year, Russia will restart the war. This time round, with the aim to attack one of the states which belong to NATO, probably one of the Baltic states. We don’t want that. So we want peace which will hold. Because bad peace is no solution.

So, what do you expect India to convey to President Putin when he comes to Delhi this week?

I very much hope that when he comes to Delhi, PM Modi will suggest to him strongly to go for peace. Because, as I said six-seven months ago, when I was here, PM Modi and President Xi Jinping did talk to Putin to tell him not to use tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Ukraine. And both of them did the right thing… So, I would very much hope that PM Modi will tell Putin — listen, President, maybe you should sign the peace deal with Ukraine, because it’s not to our advantage, it’s not to your advantage, and nobody else is to have that conflict running, because it also affects India directly, because President Trump is banning oil coming from two biggest Russian oil companies… India had a very large supply (from Russia), now it went drastically down.

And it’s not in Indian interest to also have tariffs which President Trump uses as a way to influence countries. For the record, we are against tariffs because we are in favour of free trade.

It is in India’s interest that there is no war in Ukraine, and it is normal, and the normal trade comes back and India benefits from it.

PM Modi has been talking that this is not an era of war, but it has not worked so far?

I think India has leverage, because India is a serious country which has been friendly with the Soviet Union for a long time, and now with Russia… India is not seen as an enemy of Russia, and there have been years of close links, which means you have the leverage because you’re talking like talking to friends…

But Russia is different, seen as different. So yes, of course, the only country which can actually put huge pressure on Russia is China, because 80% of dual-use materials — which means it may be in a China fridge, and then it goes into a Russian missile — comes from China. And China takes lots of fossil fuels from Russia, and has the ability to prevent various materials going to Russian territory.

China could also stop North Korean soldiers fighting in Russia.

China has huge possibilities to stop the war. Nevertheless, India is a serious country with good relations with Russia, and therefore can exert some pressure, as it did during the threat of use of tactical nuclear weapons.

It’s not as simple as for China. Russia is slowly becoming a vassal state of China. They are not equal. They’re quite dependent. Putin pays attention to what the Prime Minister Modi tells him.

Is Poland discussing defence and security cooperation with India, including new-age warfare like drones?

Yes, we are talking about various levels of defence cooperation. We are waiting for the Indian military group to come to Poland and discuss these matters.

We discuss it in theory, but we now want to talk about practical involvement. But I like to point out that one of the Polish private drone producers is actually registered as a company in India and provides drones to the Indians. So it’s already happening.

We noticed that India, which used to buy 100% of all military equipment some years ago from the Soviet Union, and then Russia, now buys only 36% of military equipment from Russia. The rest (are bought) from the US, France, and also some from us, and some others too.

We regard India as the largest democracy. We regard India as a like-minded state which shares democratic values. Therefore, we are prepared to collaborate on a variety of defence and security issues with India.

What are the other areas of cooperation that you discussed with Indian officials?

We need to step in with bigger trade and investments and also more collaboration in business. We are specialists in underground mining, we produce machinery for underground mining which (we) would supply to India. The water treatment company in Mumbai is done by the Poles. And this is a big project. We’ve got certain green technologies and water treatments or others too, which can be used in India. We need help in how to set up a company here, because it’s fairly difficult in some states and easier in some others. We want more student exchanges, more Indian students to study in Poland, because they go back to India and they become the best ambassadors of Poland in India.