Despite threats, Putin knows tactical nukes would be ‘suicidal,’ Poland’s envoy says

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The odds that Moscow will use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine are low because Russian President Vladimir Putin knows it “would be politically and militarily suicidal,” Poland’s top diplomat in Washington said.

Polish Ambassador Marek Magierowski accused Moscow this week of using its energy exports as a weapon and cautioned against believing Kremlin propaganda about mysterious attacks on Russian gas pipelines supplying Western markets.

In a wide-ranging discussion with The Washington Times, Mr. Magierowski said the West should increase deliveries of sophisticated weapons to Kyiv while Russia strengthens missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Poland, which shares a 330-mile border with Ukraine, strongly backs Kyiv’s pursuit of NATO and European Union membership, he said.

Mr. Magierowski, 51, is a former journalist who served as Poland’s envoy to Israel before arriving in Washington last year.

He said Warsaw has vivid memories of being in the crosshairs of U.S.-Soviet nuclear brinkmanship during the Cold War.

Although Poland is concerned about nuclear threats from the Kremlin, Mr. Magierowski said, Mr. Putin has never explicitly said that Moscow is considering deployment of less-powerful tactical nuclear bombs as Russia’s 7-month-old invasion of Ukraine faces mounting difficulties.

“The odds are pretty low of Mr. Putin or Russia using the nuclear card,” the ambassador said.

“If we talk about tactical nuclear weapons, mankind has never used them,” he said. “We know what the effects of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, but tactical nuclear weapons have never been used in combat, so it would be very difficult to predict what the actual impact would be of using such a warhead, for example, at the front line in Ukraine.

“I believe that Mr. Putin is aware of that, his military is aware of that,” he said.

“A tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine on the front line would be not only very risky in terms of the exposure of Russian troops to the blast and to the radiation, in a broader context, it would be politically and militarily suicidal for Putin, and that’s why I believe he refrains now not only from using this kind of weapon but also from talking about it openly,” Mr. Magierowski said.

The same logic should apply to the question of whether Russia is considering a conventional strike against any NATO member nation neighboring Ukraine, the ambassador said.

“I believe that Putin does realize that it would be, from his perspective, also absolutely suicidal, both politically and militarily,” he said, because NATO would consider an armed attack against any member nation as an attack against them all.

Ukraine’s NATO bid

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked NATO to consider granting Ukraine an “accelerated accession” or a “fast track” to membership in the alliance. Mr. Putin explicitly listed the possibility that Ukraine would eventually join the Western military alliance as one justification for launching the invasion.

Poland “would, of course, be happy to see Ukraine in the foreseeable future as a NATO member,” the ambassador said, but an accelerated accession is unlikely given “misgivings” among some of the alliance’s 29 other member nations.

Mr. Magierowski stressed that EU membership for Ukraine should take precedence because it could frustrate Russian attempts to undermine Kyiv economically and politically.

“What [Putin] fears most is a prosperous and wealthy Ukraine cracking down efficiently on corruption and drawing closer to the European Union and to Europe as such to the free world than to ‘Mother Russia,’” Mr. Magieroswki said.

He said debates over Ukrainian membership in NATO should be viewed within the context of how the alliance’s 1999 inclusion of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary changed the trajectory of regional security.

“What would the world look like if we had not joined NATO in 1999?” he asked. “We would probably be running to shelters. My fellow countrymen in Poland and my family [would be] defending our country against another Russian incursion in Central Europe.”

Better European cohesion

Mr. Zelenskyy and Ukrainian military leaders have pressed the Group of Seven leading industrial nations to give Ukraine an “air shield” to protect cities and infrastructure across the country from a renewed Russian barrage.

Mr. Magierowski said Poland opposes the idea of a Western-enforced “no-fly” zone over Ukraine because of concern that it would elevate the risk of direct NATO confrontation with Russia. He said more needs to be done to deliver “state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukraine, which would allow the Ukrainian armed forces to defend their country more efficiently against Russian aggression.”

“We’re talking about long-range missile systems, anti-aircraft systems, which Ukraine badly needs right now,” the ambassador said. “Europe could do more,” and “Europe and the European Union should be more united in terms of our political and military assistance to Ukraine.”

“Poland has been one of the leading countries in terms of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, and I believe the Polish government will be steadfast in its determination to keep … delivering anti-aircraft systems, self-propelled howitzers and tanks to Ukraine,” he said.
 
Poland has also taken in some 3 million Ukrainian war refugees, more than any other country. That has intensified political strains simmering between Warsaw and Brussels well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Friction between the EU and the right-leaning populist government of Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki reared its head Wednesday, and Poland’s minister for ties with the European bloc resigned. The Associated Press characterized Konrad Szymanski’s departure as a weakening of the Morawiecki government during rising political tensions over Europe’s energy crisis and ways of countering inflation and higher costs of living.

With Poland seeking European financial assistance to deal with the Ukrainian refugee flow, the EU’s executive arm moved in June to unfreeze some $38 billion earmarked for Poland’s domestic COVID-19 recovery programs. The EU blocked the funds for more than a year because of concern that the Polish government would improperly restrict judiciary independence.

Mr. Magierowski said Poland and the Baltic nations are “the leading countries in terms of military assistance to Ukraine per capita” and “would like other countries to follow suit.”

“If we look at the ratio between relative wealth of some EU member states and ours, I believe some other countries should be doing much more,” he said.

 ‘American troops in Poland’

The ambassador gently chided fellow EU countries for failing to heed Poland’s warnings over the past decade about heavy reliance on Russian energy. Mr. Putin’s threats to limit or cut off Russian energy exports to European markets have been potent sources of leverage and have sent governments scrambling to find alternative suppliers as the winter months approach.

“This is a very painful lesson for all of us; nevertheless, Poland has been prescient all along,” he said. “Many years ago, we were already warning our partners in the European Union that Putin would one day weaponize energy and exports of Russian gas to Europe, and this is what we are witnessing right now.”

Poland has been moving for years toward liquefied natural gas from non-Russian producers. In addition to opening its first LNG terminal on the Baltic Sea in 2015, Poland this year inaugurated the Baltic Pipe, which is transferring gas from the Norwegian continental shelf via Denmark to the Polish coastline.

“Now we are officially and entirely independent of imports of Russian gas, which is not the case, unfortunately, in Germany or in France or in Austria or in other countries,” Mr. Magierowski said.

The ambassador cautioned against believing “Russian propaganda” regarding massive natural gas leaks into the Baltic Sea after apparent attacks ruptured Russia’s Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines to Western Europe.

Some Western officials have suggested that Russian operatives carried out the attacks to worsen the impact of the EU energy crisis, but the Kremlin said the West likely sabotaged the pipelines to weaken Moscow’s energy leverage over Europe.

“It would be preposterous to blame the West, the United States or Poland for sabotaging the pipeline network,” Mr. Magierowski told The Times.

He called the Polish-U.S. alliance “ironclad, steadfast and actually the most vital and most crucial in terms of Poland’s foreign policy.”

He said Poland is committed to “trying to cooperate fruitfully with both Democratic and Republican administrations.”

The ambassador also noted President Biden’s “clear vision of what we should be doing right now in terms of assisting Ukraine.”

He said security ties between Warsaw and Washington have deepened since Mr. Biden’s announcement in June that the U.S. Army V Corps would establish permanent headquarters in Poland.

“To put it bluntly,” he said, “we expect even more American troops in Poland.”

• Sean Salai contributed to this report.