My colleague Rajini Vaidyanathan has been speaking to the Polish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Radek Sikorski.

I was outraged but not shocked.

That's the kinds of things that the GRU and the KGB have been doing for decades.

I think Putin is pretty desperate.

Uh, he thought he would win, uh, walk into Kyiv in three days.

Uh, he's in his fifth year of full-scale war and fourteenth year of assault on Donbas.

His economy is hurting.

Do you think that is a good idea?

I mean, these are high-level people on the train.

I was outraged, but not shocked.

That's the kinds of things that, that, uh, that the GIU and the KGB have been doing for decades.

I think Putin is pretty desperate.

Uh, he thought he would win, uh, walk into Kyiv in three days.

Uh, he's in his fifth year of full-scale war and 14th year of assault on Donbas.

His economy is hurting.

John Auckland-Abbey is a British volunteer who's just delivered medical aid to Sloviansk.

Do you think Europe has the staying power?

I think Putin, uh, fundamentally misunderstands the psychology of democracies.

He thought we wouldn't lift a finger when he invaded.

We did.

And, uh, w- w- we are slow to, uh, to be woken to the, uh, danger.

Uh, Putin has been at war with us for a decade, and for too long we didn't, uh, accept, uh, this fact, but now we have.

Uh, I think he's making mistakes in, uh, attacking us in Eastern Europe because he makes the argument for very large defense budgets, and he's also making a mis- mistake attacking Britain or Germany recently because that convinces everybody that it's not an East European problem, it's an overall Europe problem.

You think that this goes on another five years roughly?

Radek Sikorski is Poland's foreign minister, and he's been speaking to Sarah Montague, my colleague, uh, with his reaction to these latest attacks.

The Russians may be counting that, uh, they, uh, might, um, break Ukraine's, uh, resistance by attacks on heating and, uh, and power generation.

They've, uh, destroyed eighty percent of Ukraine's, uh, uh, electricity generating capacity, which of course affects not only civilians, but also, uh, production, uh, capabilities in the defense sector and so on.

So Putin seems to be desperate in throwing his all at Ukraine.

We've had another horrible night of attacks on, uh, Kyiv and on western Ukraine.

But do you imagine that it was done deliberately?

deliberately?Uh, we don't know.

We are still, uh, researching the issue.

Radek Sikorski is Poland's Foreign Minister, and he's been talking to my colleague Sarah Montague about, uh, his prime minister's comments

commentsThe Russians may be counting that, uh, they, uh, might, um, break Ukraine's, uh, resistance by attacks on, um, heating and, uh, and power generation.

They've, uh, destroyed eighty percent of Ukraine's, uh, uh, electricity generating capacity, which of course affects not only civilians, but also, uh, production, uh, capabilities in the defense sector and so on.

Um, so Putin seems to be desperate in throwing his all a-at Ukraine.

But you have no doubt that it was a Russian missile?

It seems to have been tracked a-across the territory of Ukraine and into Poland, and if it's the type of missile that, uh, our military thinks it's likely, judging by the speed and so on, only Russia, uh, owns and launches such missiles.

Can you talk for a minute about how you see Ukraine turning that initiative into a victory? How, how you see the war ending in a way that, uh, produces a secure, resilient democratic Ukraine that, that, um, sort of, and ends, at least for the time, the Russian threat? How, how does Ukraine get to victory here?

Let's take the long view.

Um, if we were having this conversation five years ago when the Russians started gathering forces for Ukraine, uh, if we went through scenarios, uh, of Russian invasion, we would not have guessed, n-neither you nor I, that after f- more than four years of war, Ukraine would still be not only standing, but, uh, having the initiative in some fields, and this is the case.

So, uh, it's a draw in the Black Sea.

Um, uh, it's a draw in the air.

Both countries can hit each other, but neither can operate over the territory of the other, and it's a draw on land, where the Russians have gained some territory, Ukrainians, uh, gain, uh, uh, other bits of territory.

Um, and the, uh, Ukrainians are, um, inflicting losses, uh, on the Russian army that are bigger than Putin's ca- uh, ability to recruit.

Alongside Georgia, uh, at that time.

[laughs]

And Poland was a, a medieval kingdom, uh, which took part in the European conversation.

And then in the 15th century, we became a federal state together with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Um, and it included the current, most of the current territories of, of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, eventually Latvia and parts of Estonia.

And actually, for some parts of the, uh, um, late Middle Ages and Renaissance period, it was the largest state in Europe.

Um, and it was democratic for its time, so it had a constitution.

It had, uh, the gentry were about 10% of the population.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I-I'm just trying to get a sense of whether you think that there has been a-

Poland is, is very grateful what, uh, for what successive British governments have, um, done for Ukraine.

Uh, you have done the right thing and led others and been a good example to follow, uh, for others, and Ukraine appreciates it, and it's one of the reasons why Ukraine has, uh, been able to resist, uh, Russian aggression.

Uh, and what I can say is that Putin might not wait for us, uh, with the timescale.

Remember, um, I was a-- I'm a former defense minister myself.

Um, it, it takes time to create new, um, capacity to manufacture, uh, equipment and ammunition.

Uh, it sometimes- New systems, uh, sometimes take even a decade.

Well, what about the comments from Nigel Farage last week to La Repubblica, the, the Italian newspaper, that under a reform UK government, European citizens in the UK could lose rights and benefits that are currently protected under our Brexit deal?

Do you believe that this is part of a Russian strategy of probing to see whether NATO is actually going to respond if it were to do things in NATO territory?

Yes, we do.

Uh, this was a deliberate provocation.

21 drones were launched from, uh, a single location different from the launch sites of the drones against Ukraine.... and the composition of the drone, uh, swarm was different.

If it was a side show of the attack on Ukraine, you would expect the same proportion of armed and unarmed drones.

All these drones were unarmed.

Instead of warheads, they had extra fuel tanks.

So, you're looking at this war and you think that Ukraine can hold out, that Russia is weaker, uh, then perhaps many of us, uh, have, have thought, um, and so the tide is turning in Ukraine's favor?

Have you seen a shift that you think will be sustained on the politics of migration in the, the bloc?

We pat o- ourselves on the back for winning our election in '23 by outflanking the populists on the right.

Uh, so we won on the back of, uh, of scandals to do with issuing visas, and I've personally, uh, mopped up those bad procedures and corrupt o- officials, um, and we've done a whole, uh, range of things to reduce, uh, both illegal and legal migration.

So I've doubled the price of, uh, Polish visas.

We've made it impossible to get a fake visa, uh, as a fake student.

You know, we now verify whether people have the certificates to study in their own country, whether they can speak the languages of the, of the tuition that they were supposed to, to take up.

And we have beefed up consular services in those countries that, that have readmission treaties for u- with us, for example, so that we can re- return people whose contracts have ended.

But what's your sense of the state of the battlefield and Ukraine's prospects at this moment?

Is that a step that Europe is willing to take?

Well, President Trump also called on all of Europe to stop importing, uh, Russian oil.

The two countries that are doing that, uh, are Slovakia and in particular Hungary, uh, which is run by a populist government.

So, we hope that, uh, President Trump makes the call to Budapest and asks, uh, Viktor Orban to stop importing, uh, Russian oil and import it from other directions.

I think it's high time that President Trump, uh, should see that, uh, Putin is mocking him.

Uh, instead of a ceasefire, um, that was supposed to happen, um, before the Alaska summit, um, and serious peace talks, uh, Putin is sending more and more drones, first at Ukraine and now at NATO.

So, I hope that at the end of this process, we have a series of coordinated, uh, uh, moves, uh, to, uh, uh, make President Putin realize that this, uh, exotic project of rebuilding, uh, the Russian Empire will not stand.

How important is it that that restriction get removed?

What do you think is the strategy here?

I think every new administration always takes a bit of time to find its feet and to, uh, assess the, the, the full information from intelligence, uh, uh, agencies and, and so on, and is talking to allies, where I was very glad to be able to speak to, uh, first General Kellogg, then Marco Rubio, also, uh, to the, uh, National Security Advisor Waltz.

And, um, uh, consultations with allies are good things.

But remember, it's Ukraine that decides whether she wants to fight or not.

This is, uh, I was in Munich, and it, you know what happened in Munich in '38.

Uh, the, uh, uh, Czechoslovakia was dictated to, but that was because Czechoslovakia wasn't pre- uh, ready to fight alone and didn't have allies.

Ukraine is fighting, and rather successfully, defeated the Russians at sea, for example, and has allies.

When you think about, uh, the, the end of this war, um, in your view, is it, is it possible, uh, that Ukraine can, uh, can survive and be strong with no guarantees, uh, in security terms from either NATO or the European Union? And can the European Union give such guarantees? It's not a, it's not really a security organization.