Morawiecki: Poland advocates farthest-reaching sanctions against Russia

Poland advocates the farthest-reaching sanctions against Russia, because Putin can be defeated either economically or militarily, Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Monday (May 9).

At a press conference held on Monday in Lesser Poland region, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was asked, among other things, about the sixth round of EU sanctions against Russia.

He said Poland advocated the farthest-reaching sanctions because, he explained, "Putin can be defeated either economically or militarily".

He added that although NATO was not a belligerent of the war in Ukraine, but "NATO and the EU have a huge part to play".

"Support for Ukraine first, economic sanctions second," he stressed, adding that "arduous negotiations" were being held in the European Commission.

Sixth sanctions package

Morawiecki also said that it was getting more difficult to negotiate "a wide range of all of the sanctions". "And yet it (wide range of sanctions) is necessary to exert stronger pressure on Russia. Poland is trying to organise the sanctioning process so as to find a common denominator between the unity of the EU and sanctions structured as broadly as possible in order to put pressure on Putin and the Kremlin," the prime minister said.

Ambassadors of the 27 EU countries have been meeting daily to discuss details of the sixth sanctions package targeting Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine since the European Commission announced proposals for it on May 4.

The sticking point is how to secure oil supplies to landlocked Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which all depend heavily on Russian crude delivered via Soviet-era pipelines and face a challenge to secure alternative sources.

Under the initial plan, all EU countries would stop buying Russian crude within six months and Russian refined products by the end of the year.