A high-ranking official from the Kremlin threatened to wipe Poland off the map within days if Warsaw engaged militarily against Russia, in a verbal escalation that further strained relations between Moscow and NATO at a time of heightened alert in Eastern Europe.
Nikolái Patrushev, advisor to President Vladimir Putin and former Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, issued the warning in an interview with the Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty, as reported by the state agency TASS and covered by the Kyiv Post.
"If Poland engages in military action against Russia, our country will use all the arsenal of forces and means at its disposal, and Warsaw will cease to exist in two or three days," declared Patrushev on September 15.
Although Russia possesses one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world, Patrushev did not explicitly mention nuclear weapons in his statements, which did not prevent the message from being interpreted as a threat of total destruction.
The provocation was a direct response to Polish Chancellor Radosław Sikorski, who days earlier, at the Yalta European Strategy conference held in Kiev from September 12 to 13, stated that NATO would defeat Russia "fairly quickly" if Moscow were to attack the alliance.
"If Russia were to attack us and we took off the gloves, I believe we would defeat Russia fairly quickly.", said Sikorski, referencing the air superiority of the European allies, who have around 2,500 military aircraft.
Patrushev described that analysis as "amateur" and asserted that Russian forces were not using their full potential in Ukraine, a claim that contrasts with more than four years of large-scale war in which Moscow has failed to conquer the neighboring country and has incurred enormous losses in personnel and equipment.
The threats from the Russian official come in a context of widespread escalation in Eastern Europe.
This week, Belarus —Russia's closest military ally— conducted significant maneuvers with tanks and mechanized troops near the Suwałki corridor, a strip of approximately 105 kilometers between Poland and Lithuania, which is considered NATO's most vulnerable point as it is the only land connection between the Baltic states and the rest of the alliance.
The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that his country's intelligence detected Russian plans for hybrid attacks with drones and missiles against Ukraine's allies, disguised as accidents. "We do not seek war, but if someone starts it, we will know how to defend ourselves," Tusk declared.
This episode is part of a broader Russian hybrid warfare campaign against Europe, which includes cyberattacks, sabotage, and incursions into allied airspace.
At the end of July, a Russian Kh-101 missile struck Polish territory, in an agricultural field in Lublin, in what was described as the most serious violation of NATO airspace since the beginning of the invasion.
In August, Germany blamed Russia for a drone attack on a civilian airport, and U.S. federal prosecutors charged five individuals with operating a Russian intelligence network that was planning attacks in Europe and America.
In light of this situation, European leaders have intensified their preparations. France has called high-level intelligence meetings; the United Kingdom has urged its citizens to stockpile food and drinking water; Germany is preparing its hospitals for possible attacks; and NATO has published new national resilience requirements covering everything from energy supply to healthcare in situations of "crisis and conflict."
Poland, which shares borders with Ukraine, the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, and Belarus, has been one of the main military and political supporters of Kyiv since the Russian invasion in 2022.
The NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, stated that the alliance regularly conducts exercises against scenarios of Russian aggression and that any attack would "trigger a devastating response," although analysts point out that uncertainty regarding Washington's commitment to the mutual defense clause undermines deterrence against Moscow.
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