Vladimir Putin has a bizarre theory that Polish troops will set up camp in Ukraine.
Yes, the Russian president who ordered his own troops to invade Ukraine more than two years ago is suggesting Poland could effectively do the same.
According to the Russian state news agency TASS, Putin said on Tuesday: “The Polish authorities say they are ready to send their contingents [to Ukraine].
“We hear people speaking Polish [there], there are many mercenaries from Poland.
“If, let’s say, some other European contingents enter Ukraine together with Polish troops, they will leave, but the Poles will not. It’s logical.”
He was speaking after Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told The Economist the alliance’s members should let Ukraine use Western weapons to attack beyond Russian borders.
Putin also touched on the possibility that Western troops could be deployed to Ukraine.
He said: “All these proposals to temporarily spell several Ukrainian units along the border, to liberate them in order to send them to the battlefield, to keep them near the border to ensure security – this is all nonsense. That’s all.”
The president then rolled out his usual threat of “global conflict” if the West get more involved with the war in Ukraine and allow Kyiv to use long-range missiles to reach deep into Russia.
He told reporters: “Constant escalation can lead to serious consequences. If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons?
“It’s hard to say – do they want a global conflict?”
He even claimed that sending French troops to Ukraine in particular would be a step towards global conflict.
He then warned that smaller countries in Europe “should be aware of what they are playing with”, due to their dense populations.
He claiemd: “This is a factor that they should keep in mind before talking about striking deep into Russian territory.”
On Wednesday, the day after Putin’s series of threats, the Kremlin confirmed it had seen the statement from Warsaw saying it would allow Ukraine to use Poland-supplied weapons to attack Russian facilities.
“We have seen the statement, but this was quite obvious anyway even before that, there were no secrets in this regard,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, and pointed reporters back to Putin’s original statement.