The presumptive GOP nominee will host former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso at Trump Tower on Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been formally announced.
Aso is just the latest foreign leader to spend time with Trump in recent weeks as U.S. allies prepare for the possibility that he could win back the White House this November.
“Leaders from around the world know that with President Trump we had a safer, more peaceful world,” said Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes in a statement. “Meetings and calls from world leaders reflect the recognition of what we already know here at home. Joe Biden is weak, and when President Trump is sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, the world will be more secure and America will be more prosperous.”
Trump was close with Shinzo Abe, the former Japanese prime minister who was assassinated in 2022. Aso is vice president of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and served as deputy prime minister and finance minister under Abe.
Trump has threatened to impose broad new tariffs if he wins a second term.
Early Tuesday morning, he complained about the U.S. dollar reaching a new high against the Japanese yen, calling it “a total disaster for the United States.”
“When I was President, I spent a good deal of time telling Japan and China, in particular, you can’t do that,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. “It sounds good to stupid people, but it is a disaster for our manufacturers and others.”
The U.S. dollar is trading at above 150 yen recently, up from 130-yen mark a year ago, which has made it more costly for Japan to import goods but has boosted exports.
President Joe Biden hosted current Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House for talks and a state dinner earlier this month. During the visit, the leaders announced plans to upgrade U.S.-Japan military relations, with both sides looking to tighten cooperation amid concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program and China’s increasing military assertiveness in the Pacific.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
It’s that time of year again: Leaders, business titans, philanthropists and celebs descend on the Swiss ski town of Davos to discuss the fate of the world and do deals/shots with the global elite at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
This year’s theme: “Rebuilding trust.” Prescient, given the dumpster fire the world seems to be turning into lately, both literally (climate change) and figuratively (where to even begin?).
As always, the Davos great and good will be rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s absolute top-drawer dirtbags. While there’s been a distinct dearth of Russian oligarchs in attendance at the WEF since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Donald Trump will be tied up with the Iowa caucus, there are still plenty of would-be autocrats, dictators, thugs, extortionists, misery merchants, spoilers and political pariahs on the Davos guest list.
1. Argentine President Javier Milei
Known as the Donald Trump of Argentina — and also as “The Madman” and “The Wig” — the chainsaw-wielding Javier Milei has it all: a fanatical supporter base, background as a TV shock jock, libertarian anarcho-capitalist policies (except when it comes to abortion), and a … memorable … hairdo.
A long-time Davos devotee (he’s been attending the WEF for years), Milei’s libertarian policies have turned from kooky thought bubbles to concerning reality after he was elected president of South America’s second-largest economy, riding a wave of discontent with the political establishment (sound familiar?). The question now is how far Milei will go in delivering on his campaign promises to hack back public service and state spending, close the Argentine central bank and drop the peso.
If you do get stuck talking to Milei in the congress center or on the slopes, here are some conversation starters …
Rumor has it that Mohammed bin Salman will make his first in-person WEF appearance at this year’s event, accompanied by a giant posse of top Saudi officials.
It’s the ultimate redemption arc for the repressive authoritarian ruler of a country with an appalling human rights record — who, according to United States intelligence, personally ordered the brutal assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Rumor has it that Mohammed bin Salman will make his first in-person WEF appearance at this year’s event | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Perhaps MBS would still be a WEF pariah — consigned to rubbing shoulders with mere B-listers at his own Davos in the desert — if it were not for that other one-time Davos-darling-turned-persona-non-grata: Russian President Vladimir Putin. By launching his invasion of Ukraine, which killed thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of troops, Putin managed to push the West back into MBS’ embrace. Guess it’s all just oil under the bridge now.
Here’s a piece of free advice: Try to avoid being caught getting a signature MBS fist-bump. Unless, of course, you’re the next person on our list …
3. Jared Kushner, founder of Affinity Partners
Jared Kushner is the closest anyone on the mountain is likely to come to Trump, the former — and possibly future — billionaire baron-cum-anti-elitist president of the United States of America.
On the one hand, a chat with The Donald’s son-in-law in the days just after the Iowa caucus would probably be quite a get for the Davos devotee. On other hand … it’s Jared Kushner.
The 43-year-old, who is married to Ivanka Trump and served as a senior adviser to the former president during his time in office, leveraged his stint in the White House to build up a lucrative consulting career, focused mainly on the Middle East.
Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, is largely funded through Gulf countries. That includes a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, led by bin Salman — which was, coincidentally, pushed through despite objections by the crown prince’s own advisers.
Kushner struck up a friendship and alliance with MBS during his father-in-law’s term in office, raising major conflict-of-interest suspicions for the Trump administration — especially when the then-U.S. president refused to condemn the Saudi leader in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, despite the CIA concluding he was directly involved.
Running Azerbaijan is something of a family business for the Aliyevs — Ilham assumed power after the death of his father, Heydar Aliyev, an ex-Soviet KGB officer who ruled the country for decades. And the junior Aliyev changed Azerbaijan’s constitution to pave the path to power for the next generation of his family — and appointed his own wife as vice president to boot.
5. Chinese Premier Li Qiang
Li Qiang is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ultra-loyal right-hand man, and will represent his boss and his country at the World Economic Forum this year.
Li’s claim to infamy: imposing a brutal lockdown on the entirety of Shanghai for weeks during the coronavirus pandemic, which trapped its 25 million-plus inhabitants at home while many struggled to get food, tend to their animals or seek medical help — and tanking the city’s economy in the process.
Li’s also the guy selling (and whitewashing) China’s Uyghur policy in the Islamic world. In case you need a refresher, China has detained Uyghurs, who are mostly Muslim, in internment camps in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where there have been allegations of torture, slavery, forced sterilization, sexual abuse and brainwashing. China’s actions have been branded genocide by the U.S. State Department, and as potential crimes against humanity by the United Nations.
Li Qiang will represent his boss and his country at the World Economic Forum this year | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
Nicknamed “the Napoleon of Africa” in a nod to his campaign to seize power in 1994, Paul Kagame has ruled over the land of a thousand hills since. He’s often praised for overseeing what is probably the greatest development success story of modern Africa; he’s also a dictator.
Forced from office in 2018 by mass protests following the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, Fico rose from the political ashes to become Slovakian prime minister for the fourth time late last year. His Smer party ran a Putin-friendly campaign, pledging to end all military support for Ukraine.
Slovakian courts are still working through multiple organized crime cases stemming from the last time Smer was in power, involving oligarchs alleged to have profited from state contracts; former top police brass and senior military intelligence officers; and parliamentarians from all three parties in Fico’s new coalition government.
8. President of Hungary Katalin Novák
Katalin Novák, elected Hungarian president in 2022, must’ve pulled the short straw: she’s been sent to Davos to fly the flag for the EU’s pariah state. Luckily, the 46-year-old is used to being the odd one out at a shindig: She’s both the first woman and the youngest-ever Hungarian president.
It’s her thoughts on the gender pay gap, though, that ought to get attention at the famously male-dominated World Economic Forum: In an infamous video posted back in late 2020, Novák told the sisterhood: “Do not believe that women have to constantly compete with men. Do not believe that every waking moment of our lives must be spent with comparing ourselves to men, and that we should work in at least the same position, for at least the same pay they do.” That’s us told.
9. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet
You may be surprised to see Hun Manet on this list: The new, Western-educated Cambodian prime minister has been touted in some circles as a potential modernizer and reformer.
But Hun Manet is less a breath of fresh air and a lot more continuation of the same stale story. Having inherited his position from his father, the longtime autocrat Hun Sen, Hun Manet has shown no signs of wanting to reform or modernize Cambodia. While some say it’s too early to tell where he’ll land (given his dad’s still on the scene, along with his Communist loyalists), the fact is: Many hallmarks of autocracy are still present in Cambodia. Repression of the opposition? Check. Dodgy “elections”? Check. Widespread graft and clientelism? Check and check.
10. Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani
How has a small kingdom of 2.6 million inhabitants in the Persian Gulf managed to play a starring role in so many explosive scandals?
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani is the prime minister of Qatar, a country that’s played a starring role in many explosive scandals | Chris J. Ratcliffe/AFP via Getty Images
You’d think that sort of record would see Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani shunned by the world’s top brass. Nah! Just this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Qatari leader and told him the U.S. was “deeply grateful for your ongoing leadership in this effort, for the tireless work which you undertook and that continues, to try to free the remaining hostages.”
See you on the slopes, Mohammed!
11. Polish President Andrzej Duda
When you compare Polish President Andrzej Duda to some of the others on this list, he doesn’t seem to measure up. He’s not a dictator running a violent petro-state, hasn’t invaded any neighbors or even wielded a chainsaw on stage.
But Duda is yesterday’s man. As the last one standing from Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice party that was swept out of office last year, Duda’s holding on for dear life to his own relevance, doing his best to act as a spoiler against the Donald Tusk-led government by wielding his veto powers and harboring convicted lawmakers. All of which is to say: When you catch up with President Duda at Davos, don’t assume he’s speaking for Poland.
12. Amin Nasser, CEO of Aramco
The Saudi Arabian state oil and gas company is Aramco — the world’s biggest energy firm — and Amin Nasser is its boss. If you read Aramco’s press releases, you’d be forgiven for assuming it is also the world’s biggest champion of the green energy transition. Spoiler alert: It’s far from it.
Exhibit A: Aramco is reportedly a top corporate polluter, with environment nongovernmental organization ClientEarth reporting that it accounts for more than 4 percent of the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1965. Exhibit B: Bloomberg reported in 2021 that it understated its carbon footprint by as much as 50 percent.
Nasser, meanwhile, has criticized the idea that climate action should mean countries “either shut down or slow down big time” their fossil fuel production. Say that to Al Gore’s face!
This article has been updated to reflect the fact Shou Zi Chew is no longer going to attend the World Economic Forum.
Dionisios Sturis, Peter Snowdon, Suzanne Lynch and Paul de Villepin contributed reporting.
WARSAW — Poland’s top two leaders met face-to-face Monday, but neither PM Donald Tusk nor President Andrzej Duda gave any sign they are prepared to retreat in their political conflict.
The dispute was sparked by the change of government, with Tusk’s new administration moving swiftly to purge people associated with the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party government, to retake control of the public media, and to roll back changes to the justice system that set off a multi-year conflict with Brussels.
Tusk’s Justice Minister and Chief Prosecutor Adam Bodnar moved last week to replace the head of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office without getting Duda’s approval, prompting the president to denounce Bodnar’s actions as “pathetic.”
Tossed into that volatile mix is the fate of two PiS politicians, Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, who are in prison after being convicted of abuse of power, but who are being called political prisoners by PiS.
That’s poisoned relations between Duda, a former PiS member still seen as loyal to the party, and Tusk, who has pledged to return Poland to being a European liberal democracy, and to prosecute politicians and PiS nominees accused of wrongdoing over the past eight years.
In a news conference after their meeting in Warsaw’s presidential palace — where the prime minister had to cool his heels for a few minutes before being admitted to see Duda — Tusk said he wanted better relations, but was prepared to wait out the remaining months until Duda’s final term ends in 2025.
“If we can’t make it, we will survive this year and three months, we will look for different ways,” Tusk said, adding: “Politics is to negotiate, to seek compromise between political forces. But politics, good politics, cannot be about finding a compromise between lies and truth, lawlessness and law.”
He also said he had told Duda that the president “has had a hand since 2015 in the devastation of the rule of law and legal order in Poland.”
In his own press conference, Duda called for “deescalation” of the conflict, but also said: “I appealed to the prime minister to restore the situation in accordance with the law. Not only with the law, but also with the constitution.”
Prosecutorial trials
Duda is outraged over the changes to the prosecutor’s office.
“The dismissal of the head of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office … requires written consent from the president. What the justice minister did has no legal bearing and is worthless,” Duda said.
Some lower ranking prosecutors, many seen as loyal to the old government, have rebelled against Bodnar. Duda met with them earlier Monday.
But Tusk isn’t giving an inch, insisting that National Prosecutor Dariusz Barski was improperly appointed in 2022 so there is no need to fire him as he never officially held the post.
“I only confirmed to president that we’re going to adhere to law, court judgments and the constitution,” Tusk said. “There’s no room for negotiations here — we cannot adhere to law only a bit or to the constitution only a bit.”
“I hope that in the future the president will lean to this interpretation,” Tusk added.
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, a top court that is viewed as being under control of PiS nominees, also waded into the fight on Monday by issuing a decree suspending the government’s nomination of Barski’s replacement and ordering Bodnar and “all public authorities to refrain from any actions hindering Barski’s exercise of rights, duties, and competencies.”
Krystyna Pawłowicz, one of the tribunal’s justices, made her views clear in a Sunday tweet, saying: “The neo-Bolshevik demolition of Poland is progressing.”
Imprisoned politicians
Duda is also incensed over the imprisonment of Kamiński and Wąsik. He pardoned the pair in 2015, but the Supreme Court later ruled that pardon was to no effect as it was issued before their final conviction. A lower court reopened the case and in December sentenced them to two years in prison for abuse of power while leading a corruption case back in 2007 aimed at destroying a party that was a coalition partner of PiS.
The two were arrested inside Duda’s palace last week and are now in prison, where they say they are on a hunger strike. Duda said last week he had initiated a pardon procedure to release them, but instead of simply issuing another pardon — which would free them from prison but also underline they had been convicted of a crime, which would strip them of their parliamentary seats — Duda tossed the matter to Bodnar.
He asked the justice minister to begin an amnesty procedure, which can take as long as two months and won’t necessarily return a positive finding. In the meantime, Duda wants the two released from prison, but the government fears if that happens, Duda will again claim that his 2015 pardon was effective and that the two are still MPs, despite a ruling by the speaker of parliament vacating their parliamentary seats.
Duda said he had called on Tusk, as Bodnar’s boss, to release Kamiński and Wąsik.
“I appeal once again to the minister. I have also made a personal appeal to the prime minister on this issue today, to influence his subordinate to make this happen,” Duda said.
So far the government has shown no inclination to release the pair.
“If he decides to grant clemency, of course, the detainees should be released the same day,” Tusk said, before adding another dig at Duda: “I was very keen to convince the president — unsuccessfully so far, I think — but to convince all politicians in Poland in general that they are not above the law, nor do they stand beside the law, that we should all be subject to the law to the same degree, even if some of its verdicts are not convenient for us.”
WARSAW — After eight years of rule by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, Polish voters on Sunday chose change — giving three opposition democratic parties enough seats to form a new government.
So now is the way clear to bring Poland back into the European mainstream after dallying as an illiberal democracy?
Not so fast.
The country’s likely ruling coalition faces years of very hard political graft to undo the changes wrought by PiS since 2015.
Here are five main takeaways from an election that will shake Poland and Europe.
1. Job No. 1 — creating a new government
The final result puts PiS in first place, with35.4 percent, according to a preliminary vote count, and 194 seats, but that’s too few for a majority in the 460-member lower house of parliament.
“We will definitely try to build a parliamentary majority,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
The first move belongs to President Andrzej Duda, a former PiS member who has always been loyal to the party. He has said that presidents traditionally choose the leader of the largest party to try to form a government, but if PiS really is a no-hoper, Duda could delay the formation of a stable government.
Under the Polish constitution, the president has to call a new parliamentary session within 30 days of the election. He then has 14 days to nominate a candidate for prime minister; once named, the nominee has 14 days to win a vote of confidence in parliament.
If that fails, parliament then chooses a nominee for PM.
That means if Duda sticks with PiS, it could be mid-December before the three opposition parties — Civic Coalition, the Third Way and the Left — get a chance to form a government. Together, they have248 seats in the new legislature.
There are already voices calling on the opposition to short-circuit that by striking a coalition deal with the signatures of at least 231 MPs, demonstrating to Duda that they have a lock on forming a government.
Once in power, the opposition will find that ruling isn’t easy.
What unites the three is their distaste for PiS, but their programs differ markedly.
Civic Coalition, the largest party under the leadership of Donald Tusk, a former prime minister and European Council president, is part of the center-right European People’s Party in the European Parliament. But it also contains smaller parties from different groupings like the Greens.
The Third Way is a coalition of two parties — Poland 2050, founded by TV host Szymon Hołownia, and the Polish People’s Party (PSL), the country’s oldest political force representing the peasantry. Poland 2050 is part of Renew while PSL is in the EPP. The grouping skews center right, which means it’s likely to clash with the Left on issues like loosening draconian abortion laws.
The Left is in turn an amalgamation of three small groupings whose leaders have often been at daggers drawn.
2. There’s a mighty purge coming
A non-PiS government will have a very difficult time passing legislation as it will not have the three-fifths of parliamentary votes needed to override Duda’s veto; his term ends in 2025.
The new administration’s first job will be cleaning PiS appointees out of controling positions in government, the media and state-controlled corporations. Poland has a long tradition of governments rewarding loyalists with cushy jobs, but PiS took it to an extreme not seen since communist times.
Most of those people face dismissal.
“We will fire all members of supervisory boards and boards of directors. We will conduct new recruitment in transparent competitions, in which competence, not family and party connections, will be decisive,” says the Civic Coalition electoral program.
“We’ll end the rule of the fat cats in state companies,” says the Left’s program.
The immediate market reaction was positive, with energy company Orlen up more than 8 percent on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on Monday, and the biggest bank, PKO BP, up over 11 percent.
Poland’s state media became PiS’s propaganda arm — along with a chain of newspapers bought by state-controlled refiner Orlen — hammering Tusk as the traitorous “Herr Tusk” more loyal to Germany than Poland. Not a lot of people in the media are likely to survive what’s coming, if the new government succeeds in its goal of shutting down the National Media Council — a body stuffed with PiS loyalists that manages public media.
Poland’s state media became PiS’s propaganda arm, hammering Tusk as the traitorous “Herr Tusk” more loyal to Germany than Poland | Zbignieuw Meissner/EFE via EPA
But losing a job isn’t the worst of what’s awaiting many.
3. Go directly to jail
When Tusk’s party last won power from a short-lived PiS government in 2007, the winners treated their political rivals with kid gloves and hardly anyone was prosecuted. This time the gloves are off.
In its political program, Civic Coalition promises to prosecute anyone for “breaking the constitution and rule of law.”
It aims at Duda, Morawiecki, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, Central Bank Governor Adam Glapiński for mismanaging the fight against inflation, and Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek for heading a controversial buyout that saw the sale of part of a large refinery to foreign interests.
Expect prosecutors to track down the numerous scandals that have hit PiS over the years — from the government of former Prime Minister Beata Szydło refusing to publish verdicts issued by the Constitutional Tribunal, to Duda refusing to swear in properly elected judges to the tribunal.
There are also dodgy contracts issued during the panicky early phase of the COVID pandemic, millions spent on a 2020 election by mail that had not been approved by parliament, state companies setting up funds that poured money into PiS-backed projects, a bribes-for-visas scandal, and many more.
Many people with corporate jobs kicked back part of their salaries to PiS. Additionally, state-controlled companies directed a torrent of advertising money to often niche pro-government newspapers while neglecting larger independent media.
All of those transactions are likely to be examined and — if found to be against the interests of the corporation and its shareholders — could result in criminal charges.
The coalition promises to “hold responsible” people “guilty of civil service crimes.”
4. Reaching out to Brussels
Tusk is a Brussels animal — he spent five years there as European Council president and was also chief of the European People’s party.
PiS’s departure marks a sea change with the EU — which spent eight years tangling with Warsaw over radical changes to the judicial system aimed at bringing judges under tighter political control.
The European Commission moved to end Poland’s voting rights as an EU member under a so-called Article 7 procedure, blocked the payout of €36 billion in loans and grants from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund, sued Poland at the Court of Justice of the EU, while the European Parliament passed resolutions decrying Warsaw’s backsliding on democratic principles.
The European Commission moved to end Poland’s voting rights as an EU member under a so-called Article 7 procedure | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
“The day after the election, I will go and unblock the money,” Tusk vowed before the vote.
Although Tusk said all that’s required is “a little goodwill and competence,” it’s going to be tougher than he’s letting on. The PiS government tried to unlock the money by passing a partial rollback of its judicial reforms, but they’re stuck in the PiS-controlled Constitutional Tribunal. Passing any new law will require Duda’s signature and without that, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen doesn’t have the legal basis to acknowledge that Poland has met the milestones it needs to achieve to get the money.
“Perhaps the strategy of Tusk will be to try to reopen the negotiation on the milestones and kind of striking a new deal with the European Commission,” said Jakub Jaraczewski, a research coordinator for Democracy Reporting International, a Berlin-based NGO.
5. Making waves in Europe
PiS made a lot of enemies — and the new government will try to undo that damage.
Relations with Berlin have been foul, with Kaczyński pounding the German government for wanting to undermine Polish independence and accusing Berlin of aiming to strike a deal with Moscow “because it is in their economic interest as well as that of their national character: the pursuit of domination at any cost.” Kaczyński and other PiS politicians have also constantly harried Germany for not coming clean about wartime atrocities against Poland.
Tusk has been careful not to touch that issue for fear of harming his party’s electoral chances, but he’s historically had good relations with Berlin — although Poland, no matter under which government, is a big and often prickly country that’s not an easy partner.
Tusk blamed PiS for the downturn in relations with Ukraine after the Polish government restricted Ukrainian grain imports not to annoy Polish farmers and to say it would not send more weapons to Kyiv. Tusk called it “stabbing a political knife in Ukraine’s back, while the battles on the frontline are being decided.”
While Brussels, Berlin and Kyiv will be breathing a sigh of relief at the change of direction in Warsaw, things are likely to be a little more tense in Budapest. Poland and Hungary had a mutual defense pact, blocking the needed unanimity in the European Council to move on the Article 7 procedure.
Without Kaczyński to protect him, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán is much more exposed. There are other populists in Europe, like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Robert Fico, who looks likely to take over in Slovakia, but they don’t face Article 7 procedures and their countries have tight relations with the EU — making it difficult to see why they’d risk that to go out on a limb to save Orbán.
Paola Tamma contributed reporting.
This article has been updated with the final election results.
WARSAW — It’s squeaky bum time in the EU’s fifth most populous country.
After months of bitter campaigning, scandals, gaffes, attacks and just one debate, the political landscape ahead of Sunday’s general election is pretty much where it was a year ago. Two big parties — the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party and the centrist Civic Coalition — are far ahead and a clutch of smaller parties are straggling far behind.
It’s a testament to the very deep divisions in Polish society.
The government’s backers see the opposition as traitorous sell-outs willing to hand Poland off the Germany (or even Russia) and to turn Poland into an irreligious, gay-friendly dystopia subservient to Brussels and filled with Muslim immigrants.
Opposition backers warn that if Law and Justice wins a third term in office, it will succeed in throttling what’s left of Polish democracy by completing its takeover of the courts, attack independent media and isolate Poland from its partners in the European Union.
1. What do the polls show?
POLITICO’s Poll of Polls currently has PiS at 37 percent while the Civic Coalition is at 30 percent.
Three smaller parties are also likely to make it into the next parliament.
The center-right Third Way is at 11 percent and the Left is at 10 percent. Both have pledged to join with Civic Coalition to oust PiS from power.
Far-right Confederation is at 9 percent — it’s the only possible coalition partner for Law and Justice, even though its leaders say they won’t do that. The two parties have similar nationalist views, but their economic policies are very different.
2. Why is everyone watching the small parties?
The rules are that parties need to win 5 percent of the vote to get seats in parliament, but coalitions need 8 percent.
Third Way — which unites the Poland 2050 party started by TV host Szymon Hołownia and the agrarian Polish People’s Party — faces that hurdle. If it falls short, the remaining parties in parliament will get a boost, and that would likely put PiS very close to a stand-alone majority.
“How smaller parties will fare is crucial,” said Ben Stanley, an associate professor at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.
3. Are the elections free and fair?
Free maybe, but not very fair.
The government is boosting social spending, and held country-wide picnics where government officials got to hobnob with voters — all financed by the taxpayer. It is also promising rewards to localities with the highest vote total — a contest that only applies in the smaller towns that tend to be strong PiS backers.
The state-controlled media is firmly in the government’s camp, despite being obliged by law to be impartial. A chain of newspapers owned by state refiner Orlen is also backing PiS — and papers are even rejecting advertising from opposition parties.
Finally, the government has put forward a referendum with four questions that are designed to harm the opposition and don’t actually reflect any real policies. The one on migration reads: “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, according to the forced relocation mechanism imposed by European bureaucracy?”
The referendum has no spending limit, so state-owned corporations are pouring vast sums into the campaign. The Polish Post Office even sent leaflets to customers explaining the referendum and helpfully showing a mock ballot marked four times “no” — reflecting the government’s view.
Finally, the vote count will be supervised by judges appointed by the ruling party.
As of Friday evening, a grouping of foreign election observers was complaining that they still hadn’t received accreditation from the electoral commission to watch the vote.
4. What are the mechanics of voting?
All campaigning ends at midnight Friday and media stop all political reporting.
Polls open at 7 a.m. for about 29 million registered voters.
More than 600,000 are registered outside the country — a record. However, a new arbitrary rule limits vote counting in foreign locations to 24 hours; if the count is not finished by then all the ballots in that voting precinct are scrapped. Most foreign voters back the opposition.
The polls close at 9 p.m. and the media will immediately flash the result of exit polls — which cannot be published while voting continues — which historically have been fairly accurate.
The vote count begins immediately, and the national electoral commission will announce a running total. By Monday morning there should be a pretty good idea of the official vote winner.
5. How is a government formed?
The first move will belong to PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda.
Polish president Andrzej Duda | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty images
In line with Poland’s constitution, the president is free to nominate a prime minister. Duda said traditionally the president chooses a candidate from the overall election winner — which is almost certain to be Law and Justice.
The newly nominated prime minister then has to win an absolute majority of the 460-member Sejm, the lower house of parliament.
If the nominee fails, parliament takes over and has 14 days to nominate a new PM candidate who then has to win another confidence vote.
If that ends in no government, the ball is back in the president’s court and he has 14 days to pick another nominee. This time the nominee only needs a simple majority in the confidence vote.
6. What happens if no government is formed?
Running through the efforts to win a parliamentary majority could take a couple of months. If that fails, Duda cuts short the parliamentary term and calls a new election, which has to take place within 45 days.
That means a new election — and another bitter campaign — sometime in the spring of 2024.
WARSAW — The campaign language ahead of this year’s Polish general election is apocalyptic — painting it as an existential battle for the soul of the EU’s fifth most populous country — but the likeliest outcome is a chaotic stalemate.
If the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) hangs on to power for a third term there isn’t much more it can do to wreck Poland without quitting the EU — and there’s little prospect of that. If the opposition pulls off a stunner and wins it will be so hemmed in by PiS-controlled courts and institutions and by a hostile president that it won’t be able to do much more than tweak the optics rather than surgically remove the growths added by Law and Justice.
Internationally, Poland is too important to be kept in the deep freeze forever; with a fast-growing economy, a big military and a key role in supplying Ukraine, it is no Slovakia. A PiS win will mean greater efforts to find some accommodation with Warsaw; an opposition victory will dramatically improve the atmosphere, but there are limits to even an opposition-ruled Poland’s coziness on many issues that are key to the EU.
An opposition victory could weaken PiS’s institutional advantages that it’s been using to skew the playing field in its favor — potentially leading to a longer-term shift away from the right-wing party that’s dominated Polish politics for the past eight years. But it’s no quick fix.
According to PiS, opposition leader Donald Tusk is a disloyal Pole who is working on behalf of both Germany and Russia to turn the country into a puppet state by letting in hundreds of thousands of migrants.
Oh, and he also wants to raise the retirement age.
Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS chief and Poland’s real ruler, thundered to his supporters on Sunday: “Donald Tusk had to agree to make Poland subservient to Germany and therefore to Russia.”
“Stop Tusk. Only PiS can ensure Poland’s security,” trumpets an election ad.
For the opposition, led by Tusk’s Civic Coalition, another four-year term with Law and Justice at the helm means real danger for the future of Poland as a democratic country, as well as undermining the rights of women thanks to a draconian abortion law and an LGBTQ+ minority subjected to attacks by ruling party officials.
“Law and Justice is poison,” Tusk said at a campaign rally this summer. “Every day, every month they are in power is a growing threat to our security.”
Those fighting words are designed to budge the electorate; POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows PiS at 37 percent while Civic Coalition is at 30 percent — meaning any new government is going to require cobbling together a coalition with smaller parties.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party Jarosław Kaczyński has promised that if his party wins, he’ll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU | Marian Zubrzycki/EPA-EFE
It’s not all rhetorical spin.
“There is always a tendency to say this is the most important election since 1989 [the election that ended communist rule], but this time there is a somewhat stronger case for making that argument. The level of polarization is evidence for that,” said Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor of politics at the University of Sussex in the U.K.
High stakes
The outcome is going to be watched very closely, from Brussels to Kyiv.
For the European Union, the hope is that if PiS is ousted Poland will return to the ways of Tusk, who served as Polish prime minister during a remarkable era of comity with the EU and with Germany before going on to become president of the European Council. As an added sweetener, Brussels will likely quickly move to release €36 billion in loans and grants from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund held up over worries that PiS’s court system reforms undermine judicial independence.
The EU court cases, parliamentary resolutions, infringement procedures and Article 7 effort to strip Poland of its voting rights would also likely be shelved.
The German government would also sigh with relief at seeing the back of a government that has fiercely needled Berlin at every occasion and also called for up to $1.3 trillion in compensation for the destruction caused by the Nazi occupation; although the opposition hasn’t cut itself off from that demand.
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s fiercest advocates during the war — sending tanks and jet fighters ahead of most other countries, offering diplomatic support, receiving millions of refugees who fled the early days of the war, and serving as the main transshipment point for weapons and other aid heading east.
But the election campaign has soured that relationship.
Warsaw led the charge in blocking Ukrainian grain exports, worried it would undercut Polish prices and harm farmers — a key voting bloc. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dared to criticize Poland at the U.N., a furious President Andrzej Duda compared Ukraine to a drowning man who poses a danger to his rescuers.
“We say to the Ukrainian authorities — do not do what goes against the interests of Polish farmers,” lectured Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who said last month that Poland would stop sending weapons to Ukraine while it rebuilt its own stocks.
Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau skipped this week’s summit in Kyiv. Getting relations back on an even keel will take “a titanic effort,” he said.
Tusk promised a reset: “We cannot allow good Polish-Ukrainian relations to depend on the negligence and chaos created by the Polish government.”
Polish opposition leader and former premier, Donald Tusk addresses participants of a rally in Warsaw on October 1, 2023 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
A PiS victory will send shock waves across Europe.
Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, Kaczyński’s closest ally, has been building his illiberal democracy for over a decade. With Rome governed by right-winger Giorgia Meloni, Slovakian populist Robert Fico scoring a victory in last week’s election, and the far-right Alternative for Germany party rising fast in the polls, the signal is that the right is gaining strength across the Continent.
That’s likely to further erode the tenuous hold on power of centrist parties in the European Parliament in next year’s election.
It will also block any chance of agreeing on a migration pact to tackle the thousands of people crossing EU borders and kill any effort to reform EU institutions ahead of an expansion to Balkan countries and Ukraine.
“A PiS government will block reforms on issues like taxation and foreign policy that threaten the national veto right. There is also a different approach to migration,” warned a senior Polish government official who spoke on condition of being granted anonymity. “We have another model of the European Union.”
Reality bites
However, despite the rhetoric, the reality is that the election is unlikely to mean a radical worsening of relations between Warsaw and Brussels.
Kaczyński has promised that if his party wins he’ll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU, after admitting that the reforms made so far haven’t worked. He vowed: “This time it will succeed.”
But his party has already sent out peace feelers to Brussels, trying and so far failing to backtrack on some changes to top courts to get the Commission to release the blocked funds.
If Law and Justice wins a third term, EU institutions will have to decide whether they want to continue the confrontation, or else make peace with a Poland that has firmly chosen a populist course.
“It takes two to tango. Maybe there will be a will to compromise on both sides,” said the Polish government official.
Permanent ostracism is also untenable, as Hungary showed this week by playing a skillful game of getting the EU to release blocked funds to avoid Orbán vetoing aid for Ukraine.
Despite opposition charges that PiS wants to pull Poland out of the EU in a Polexit — a cry from parts of the far right — Law and Justice says it has no intention of following the U.K. out of the bloc.
The results of the Polish general election could influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Poland’s presidential election in 2025 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
“PiS’s direction has always been toward the EU,” said PiS MP Radosław Fogiel.
And an opposition-led Poland would also be no easy partner for Brussels. After the initial flush of warmth, perennial problems will return like Poland’s continued addiction to coal-fired power, its reluctance to join the euro, and a suspicion of large flows of migrants — also voiced by Tusk during the campaign.
“Even if there is a change of government, there will still be very strong public opposition to a change in migration policy,” said Jacek Czaputowicz, a former foreign minister under the PiS government, speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum.
Poland’s large and powerful farming sector will be a huge issue for Ukrainian grain exports and for future efforts to recalibrate the EU to accommodate new and poorer members.
Ukrainian politicians hope that the war of words with Warsaw will die down after the election.
“War is exhausting for Ukraine and for Poland too, so emotions are felt on both sides, in addition, the election campaign in Poland, that tends to politicize everything, even economic issues,” said Andriy Deshchytsia, former Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, adding: “However, the Russian threat is still here, just like a year ago … so we don’t have any other choice but to sit and search for a compromise.”
As bad as it gets
At home, the election is also unlikely to have the earth-shattering impact that’s being voiced during the campaign.
PiS has done a lot of damage over the last eight years, and it’s difficult to see how much more it can do while still remaining a member of the EU. The state media is a Euro-lite version of North Korea, state-controlled corporations are stuffed with party hacks, the highest courts are firmly under political control, much of the Roman Catholic Church functions as a PiS acolyte, the police don’t mind clubbing the occasional opposition protester, the prosecutor’s office has become a political plaything — dropping investigations of the well-connected while fiercely pursuing the regime’s opponents.
But expanding that control will be difficult in an economy that has a large and vibrant private sector, a strong civil society and hefty private media.
Non-government media operators are owned by foreign companies that have shown no sign of backing out of the Polish market; an earlier effort to tangle with American-owned TVN, the country’s largest private television network, was quickly slapped down by Washington.
The EU is also working on a rulebook that aims to secure media independence against political pressure and foster pluralism; Commission Vice President Věra Jourová warned it “will be a major warning signal for member states.”
An opposition win would dramatically change the optics with Brussels, and a new government would scrap further legal changes to courts. But any effort to roll back those reforms, and any other PiS legislation, will run into a significant hurdle: President Duda.
There is a chance that Poland’s President Andrzej Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution | Leon Neal/Getty Images
There is no poll predicting an opposition win so gigantic that it would gain a two-thirds majority of MPs needed to overturn presidential vetoes. The country’s top courts are filled with judges appointed by the current government, meaning legislation will also be caught up in endless litigation.
“Even if they win an outright majority, which doesn’t look likely at the moment, this is an internally divided opposition and they face a president who will be able to veto their legislation,” said Szczerbiak.
However, there is a chance that Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution.
“Duda is a dealmaker,” said Wawrzyniec Smoczyński, a political analyst and president of the New Community Foundation. “Tusk is a big risk for him and the way to lessen that is to strike a deal.”
If Duda doesn’t play ball, a non-PiS government could be limited to purging state companies, the government and the media of PiS loyalists.
“Overnight you will get the public media back. Everyone will be booted out of there,” Tusk pledged.
Those small steps are unlikely to satisfy opposition backers yearning for revenge against Law and Justice and a clean break with the last eight years.
“For Poland, it’s all fucked up,” said Paweł Piechowiak, taking part in last week’s massive opposition march in Warsaw while waving huge Polish and EU flags, his cheeks painted in rainbow colors. “You can’t wreck this country any more than it is.”
But those personnel changes may have longer term consequences by switching public media away from backing PiS, which could undercut that party’s base of support in rural and small-town Poland.
That could change the political dynamic, especially if the next government is short-lived and there is an early election; it could also influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Poland’s presidential election in 2025.
“The parliamentary election could be viewed as the first round of a longer campaign,” said Szczerbiak.
Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting from Kyiv.
WARSAW — Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is in the fight of its political life ahead of next month’s general election — and in its scramble for votes it’s taking aim at the country’s alliance with Ukraine.
The latest blow came from Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who on Wednesday said that Poland has halted shipments of its own armaments to Ukraine.
“We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki told Poland’s Polsat television.
It’s true that Poland has sent most of its Soviet-era tanks, fighters and other weapons to Ukraine and doesn’t have much left in its stocks. Warsaw will also continue allowing arms shipments from other allies to pass through its territory.
“Poland still functions as a hub for international aid,” said government spokesperson Piotr Müller, adding that the country is fulfilling its existing military supply contracts with Ukraine.
But Morawiecki’s comments come at a time when relations between Warsaw and Kyiv are the frostiest since Russia’s invasion a year and a half ago, and add to the impression that the nationalist party is undermining its alliance with Ukraine for electoral gain.
“Morawiecki wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t obvious … but to say such a thing at such a time escalates the conflict,” said Marcin Zaborowski, a director with the Globsec think tank.
The catalyst is grain.
Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have closed their markets to Ukrainian grain imports, in violation of the rules of the European Union’s single market, arguing they need to protect their farmers from price drops.
Ukraine has retaliated by filing a lawsuit against them at the World Trade Organization. It has also threatened to block some Polish agricultural exports to Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took a swipe at those countries at the United Nations this week, saying: “Alarmingly, some in Europe play out solidarity in a political theater — turning grain into a thriller … they’re helping set the stage for a Moscow actor.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda scrapped a meeting with Zelenskyy in New York due to a scheduling conflict, and the Ukrainian ambassador to Warsaw was summoned to the foreign ministry to explain. Morawiecki characterized relations with Kyiv as “difficult.”
Political calculation
In Poland, the core reason for the move is PiS’s need to shore up its support among rural voters and also to peel away supporters from the far-right Confederation party, many of whose backers are skeptical about helping Ukraine.
The Polish government sent tanks and jet fighters to Ukraine at a time when many other countries were balking at sending such equipment to Kyiv | Omar Marques/Getty Images
“Ukrainians ruthlessly took advantage of the Polish government being a sucker, emphasized their sympathy, which of course was not there, took the cash, and now they will declare a trade war on us,” Confederation leader Sławomir Mentzen told the Polish press.
Jacek Kucharczyk, head of the Institute for Public Affairs, a Warsaw-based think tank, characterized the shift in tone by the ruling party as “a desperate electoral ploy.”
In POLITICO’s poll of polls, PiS has the support of 38 percent of voters while Civic Coalition, the leading opposition party, is at 29 percent. If that holds, Law and Justice won’t have enough seats in parliament to rule on its own and so will have to try to form a coalition; Confederation is the likeliest target, although the party says it won’t join forces with PiS.
But the trends look worrying for PiS.
The government has been hit with a growing visas-for-bribes scandal that now has the European Commission asking for explanations. A new poll by United Surveys shows that if the main opposition parties join together, they would be able to cobble together a majority government after the October 15 election.
Shifting narrative
The U-turn on Ukraine may help shore up some of PiS’s electoral base. But it could cause other problems.
It undermines the government’s main foreign policy win. After years of bitter conflicts with the European Union and other key allies over rule of law, media freedom and backsliding on democratic standards, Poland’s strong support for Ukraine changed the narrative in Brussels and in Washington.
Millions of ordinary Poles helped Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack. The Polish government sent tanks and jet fighters to Ukraine at a time when many other countries were balking at sending such equipment to Kyiv, fearing Russian retaliation. Warsaw also took delight in pointing out the shortcomings of European countries like Germany and France.
Zelenskyy even called Poland a “sister.”
In an address to the Polish nation made last year in Polish, he said: “I will remember how you welcomed us, how you help us. Poles are our allies, your country is our sister. Your friendship forever. Our friendship forever. Our love forever. Together we will be victors.”
Opinion polls show there is still strong support for helping Ukraine, with about three-quarters of Poles wanting to accept refugees.
Millions of ordinary Poles helped Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack | Omar Marques/Getty Images
“The risk is that PiS voters broadly support the pro-Ukraine policy, and such a rapid policy change could be difficult to explain,” said Kucharczyk.
PiS has toyed with skepticism about Ukraine in the past — raising the issue of wartime massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalist guerrillas — but the overarching message was that Poland is Ukraine’s firmest friend.
The narrative shift is being welcomed in Moscow.
In New York, Duda compared Ukraine to a desperate, drowning person.
“A drowning person is extremely dangerous, he can pull you down to the depths … simply drown the rescuer,” Duda said.
That got a thumbs-up from the Kremlin.
“Never before did I agree with Duda as strongly as I did after this statement. Everything he said is correct,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
The Polish opposition is also going on the attack.
Radosław Sikorski, a former Polish foreign minister and now a member of the European Parliament for the Civic Coalition, called Morawiecki’s comments “criminally stupid.”
“Even if we don’t have much more to give then why is he saying this in public! Does he really want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to calculate that one or two more pushes and Ukraine will fall?” he tweeted.
Kyiv is now trying to downplay any rift with Warsaw.
Oleksandr Merezhko, head of Ukraine’s parliament committee on foreign relations, said he felt Morawiecki’s weapons comments weren’t linked to the growing trade fight.
“Like every politician, I know that during an election campaign, rhetoric can be quite emotional,” he said.
Bartosz Brzeziński and Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Monday that the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces could last “weeks, even months.”
“The counteroffensive has started. It’s going to be deployed for several weeks and even months. We are supporting it within the limits that we set ourselves,” Macron said alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda at the Elysée Palace.
Ukrainian forces have stepped up operations in the last couple of days and announced on Monday evening that they had liberated several villages in the south and the east of the country.
“We want [the counteroffensive] to be as victorious as possible so that we can then start a period of negotiations in good conditions,” he added.
The French, Polish and German leaders were meeting in Paris to discuss Ukraine’s request for security guarantees and a clear pathway to NATO membership ahead of a summit of the military alliance in July. However, on Monday evening it appeared that the leaders were sending different signals in a press conference that was held ahead of a working dinner in Paris.
While Duda called for Ukraine to be given “a clear signal, a clear perspective” on its future membership of NATO, Scholz was less forthcoming, noting that debates were “intense.”
“We have been discussing security guarantees since the start of the war … We have taken decisions to support Ukraine for as long as needed. This debate is intense between us, between Germany, France, and its U.S. partners,” Scholz said. “We will finalize [our position] when we have the results of our talks. But … it must be very concrete.”
Earlier this month, Macron called for Ukraine to be given “strong and tangible” security guarantees but stopped short of calling for full-fledged NATO membership.
Macron, Scholz and Duda all pledged that their countries would continue supporting Ukraine during the counteroffensive. Scholz told reporters that Germany would support Ukraine for “as long as necessary” and said his country had also set up systems to repair weapons during the current assault.
Macron meanwhile said that France had “intensified deliveries” of weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles.
An estimated 500,000 people marched through downtown Warsaw Sunday afternoon in a huge rally against the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, held on the 34th anniversary of the breakthrough election that effectively ended communist rule in Poland.
The march was called by Donald Tusk, former Polish prime minister and former president of the European Council, who is now leading his Civic Platform (PO) party in a bid to defeat PiS in an election due later this year.
“You’re all here because you have just believed we can win,” Tusk told the crowd, which filled Warsaw’s Castle Square. People in the crowd were holding up white-and-red flags and anti-government placards, including the locally famous ones with eight asterisks, denoting the Polish for “f*** PiS.”
“Here’s my pledge to you today: We are going to win this election and hold PiS accountable,” Tusk said.
The rally, which appeared to be the biggest political demonstration in Poland in decades, took place just a few days after PiS-friendly President Andrzej Duda signed off on controversial legislation setting up a special commission to probe Russian influence on Poland’s security. The commission will have vast powers including slapping whoever is found to be making political decisions under Russia’s sway with a 10-year ban from holding public office.
Poland’s opposition has said that the proposed sanctions of the special commission could be used to remove Tusk from politics under trumped-up allegations.
Following criticism in Poland, as well as from the U.S. and the EU, Duda has since moved to blunt the commission’s powers. That would, however, require another vote in the parliament.
Poland is gearing up for what is set to be a close election this fall. According to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, Tusk’s Civic Platform is currently trailing PiS. But the ruling party does not have enough support to guarantee it a majority in the next parliament.
The standing of PiS in the polls has weakened in 2023 in the wake of double-digit inflation and an economic slowdown. Both are expected to ease later this year, possibly giving the ruling party some room to outdo the opposition and secure an unprecedented third consecutive term in office.
The Polish Supreme Court on Tuesday backed an earlier ruling that a writer who called President Andrzej Duda a “moron” on social media should not face prosecution.
Insulting the head of state is a crime in Poland.
Dismissing an appeal from the National Prosecutor’s Office as “manifestly unfounded,” the court said the social media post by writer Jakub Żulczyk did not constitute a crime, and caused negligible harm, according to Polish outlet Onet.
Żulczyk said he was relieved at being “finally acquitted.”
“I am very happy that FINALLY we can bring all this to an end,” he wrote on Facebook.
In Poland, insulting the president — of Poland or even of another country — is punishable by up to three years in prison.
In November 2020, after the U.S. presidential election, Żulczyk took to Facebook to complain about the way Duda congratulated then-President-elect Joe Biden on his victory.
Duda had said he was awaiting Biden’s “nomination by the Electoral College,” even though it was already clear that he would win the election, and other heads of state had already congratulated him.
“Joe Biden is the 46th president of the United States. Andrzej Duda is a moron,” Żulczyk wrote.
Don’t expect to see F-16s in Ukrainian skies anytime soon — the allies need some time.
Following months of Ukrainian lobbying, the U.S. on Friday greenlit training for Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighter aircraft, raising expectations that a fleet of F-16s would soon be on its way.
Yet as of now, some of the leading contenders to donate the American-developed warplanes — including the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark — have only committed to helping train Ukrainian pilots, expressing reluctance to make further promises.
“Let’s make sure we now make the most of training activities,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra told reporters in Brussels on Monday. “What the future then holds for us,” he added, “remains to be seen.”
Some, like Belgium, have even directly said they don’t have F-16s to spare.
The pattern, however, is one that has played out over and over as Western allies gradually escalate the weaponry they are shuttling to Ukraine. At first, there is hesitation. Then one of the major powers — often the U.S. — takes a first step, followed by a coalition of European nations that jump roughly together.
“This is kind of indicative of how the U.S. has provided assistance at every step of the war in Ukraine,” said Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
For now, no one is ready to send the first jet. That could easily change — in time.
“The delivery of F-16s will indeed make a difference … months from now,” said Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe.
Where are the jets now?
The slow decision-making is linked to both political and technical considerations. Few countries have an F-16 surplus, and the modern machines require significant training and logistics. The U.S. also has to authorize other countries to re-export the plane.
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, said “the Netherlands are in a position to be [the] first” country gifting fighter jets.
The Netherlands currently has 24 F-16s in use which are “operationally deployable” and “will remain in use until mid-2024,” a spokesperson for the Dutch defense ministry said. “After that, they are available for another destination, such as sale.”
Ukrainian Air force MiG-29 fighter planes take part exercises during August 2016 | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
The Netherlands also has an additional 18 F-16s “which are no longer used operationally” and “can also be given a different destination.”
Twelve of these 18 were originally slated to be transferred to a private company, but the transfer had been delayed, the spokesperson noted.
Predictably, the U.S., where the F-16 was invented, maintains its own massive fleet. Yet asked Monday if there is any chance the U.S. will provide its own planes, U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters: “I don’t know. I mean, I think there’s a number of possibilities.”
The U.K., meanwhile, has been an aggressive advocate of creating a Western “coalition for jets.” But the country itself lacks any F-16s to donate.
Several other capitals have also signaled they are only willing to go as far as training. In addition to Belgium, Polish President Andrzej Duda said last week that Warsaw will not give away its more modern jets — the country maintains a fleet of 48 F-16s — after already donating Soviet-era MiG-29s.
How long will training take? Where will it happen?
Washington has indicated that while it now supports Ukraine getting access to the F-16s, the decision is designed to help Kyiv in the longer term — and won’t have an immediate impact on the battlefield.
“It will take several months at best for them to have that capability and there are a lot of details that are going to have to be sorted out,” Kendall, the air force secretary, said Monday. “It will give the Ukrainians an incremental capability that they don’t have right now. But it’s not going to be a dramatic game changer.”
For now, allies are working to get the training started.
A spokesperson for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — whose country doesn’t have F-16s — said on Monday that Berlin and Washington were in “close coordination” on the plans, but stressed that the program “takes several months or even years, depending on the previous experience of the pilots.”
The spokesperson cited Spangdahlem and Ramstein as air force bases in Germany where the U.S. has F-16s stationed, offering possible sites for practice. The spokesperson declined to comment on what specific support Berlin may provide.
Some experts have criticized the pace of decision-making.
The U.S. administration’s “continued incremental decision-making undermines so much of the good work it has already done,” Hodges, the former U.S. general, told POLITICO on Monday.
“If the administration would decide that it wants Ukraine to actually win this war, then all the excuses would go away, decisions would be made in time, and the full effect of Western support would bring about the quickest possible successful conclusion to this war,” he added.
Kendall, the U.S. air force secretary, underscored that the issue is a matter of priorities — and that there is now a shift to thinking ahead.
“We could certainly have started earlier, but there were much higher priorities and it’s seen by some as an escalatory act on our part,” he said.
How would Ukraine use F-16s? Would Russia respond?
While there were fears earlier in the conflict that providing advanced, Western fighter jets could be escalatory, officials appear to have shed those concerns — as they did earlier in the conflict on the issue of sending modern, Western tanks.
A diplomat from a European country with F-16s said Ukraine could use the planes in different ways, including mere surveillance and defense of its airspace, and commit to not launch any bombing campaigns over Russian territory.
U.S. President Joe Biden said over the weekend that he received “a flat assurance” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the jets will not be used in Russian territory. “But wherever Russian troops are within Ukraine in the area, they would be able to do that,” he said.
Alexander Grushko, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, warned that Western countries sending F-16s to Ukraine would incur “colossal risks for themselves,” according to Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass. Yet that’s a message Moscow has tossed out for each new stage of Western support — and the Kremlin is running out of ways to escalate further.
“There is not much they can do,” said Jones, the CSIS scholar. “I think it reflects that the concerns I think that a range of government officials have had about how the Russians might respond to more sophisticated weapons have just not proven to be accurate.”
The European diplomat said the U.S. could grow more comfortable with the idea of sending F-16s to Ukraine if Kyiv fails to make significant gains in its upcoming offensive, or if the West finds itself unable to supply Ukraine with other key needs and decides to compensate with jets.
Asked if it is realistic for Ukraine to get F-16s by the fall, a senior Central European defense official was upbeat, saying “I think it is.”
Weighing in on the same question, a senior diplomat from Eastern Europe quipped: “Why not?”
Jacopo Barigazzi, Hans von der Burchard, Jan Cienski and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.
There’s an Emmanuel Macron-shaped shadow hovering over this week’s U.S. visit by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
In contrast to the French president — who in an interview with POLITICO tried to put some distance between the U.S. and Europe in any future confrontation with China over Taiwan and called for strengthening the Continent’s “strategic autonomy” — the Polish leader is underlining the critical importance of the alliance between America and Europe, not least because his country is one of Kyiv’s strongest allies in the war with Russia.
“Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States,” he said before flying to Washington.
In the U.S. capital, Morawiecki continued with his under-the-table kicks at the French president.
“I see no alternative, and we are absolutely on the same wavelength here, to building an even closer alliance with the Americans. If countries to the west of Poland understand this less, it is probably because of historical circumstances,” he said on Tuesday in Washington.
Unlike France, which has spent decades bristling at Europe’s reliance on the U.S. for its security, Poland is one of the Continent’s keenest American allies. Warsaw has pushed hard for years for U.S. troops to be stationed on its territory, and many of its recent arms contracts have gone to American companies. It signed a $1.4 billion deal earlier this year to buy a second batch of Abrams tanks, and has also agreed to spend $4.6 billion on advanced F-35 fighter jets.
“I am glad that this proposal for an even deeper strategic partnership is something that finds such fertile ground here in the United States, because we know that there are various concepts formulated by others in Europe, concepts that create more threats, more question marks, more unknowns,” Morawiecki said. “Poland is trying to maintain the most commonsense policy based on a close alliance with the United States within the framework of the European Union, and this is the best path for Poland.”
Fast friends
Poland has become one of Ukraine’s most important allies, and access to its roads, railways and airports is crucial in funneling weapons, ammunition and other aid to Ukraine.
That’s helped shift perceptions of Poland — seen before the war as an increasingly marginal member of the Western club thanks to its issues with violating the rule of law, into a key country of the NATO alliance.
Warsaw also sees the Russian attack on Ukraine as justifying its long-held suspicion of its historical foe, and it hasn’t been shy in pointing the finger at Paris and Berlin for being wrong about the threat posed by the Kremlin.
“Old Europe believed in an agreement with Russia, and old Europe failed,” Morawiecki said in a joint news conference with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. “But there is a new Europe — Europe that remembers what Russian communism was. And Poland is the leader of this new Europe.”
That’s why Macron’s comments have been seized on by Warsaw.
According to Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki, Emmanuel Macron’s talks of distancing the EU from America “threatens to break up” the block | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“I absolutely don’t agree with President Macron. We believe that more America is needed in Europe … We want more cooperation with the U.S. on a partnership basis,” Marcin Przydacz, a foreign policy adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, told Poland’s Radio Zet, adding that the strategic autonomy idea pushed by Macron “has the goal of cutting links between Europe and the United States.”
While Poland is keen on European countries hitting NATO’s goal of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense — a target that only seven alliance members, including Poland, but not France and Germany, are meeting — and has no problem with them building up military industries, it doesn’t want to weaken ties with the U.S., said Sławomir Dębski, head of the state-financed Polish Institute of International Affairs.
He warned that Macron’s talks of distancing Europe from America in the event of a conflict with China “threatens to break up the EU, which is against the interests not only of Poland, but also of most European countries.”
Ukraine’s farmers played an iconic role in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion, towing away abandoned enemy tanks with their tractors.
Now, though, their prodigious grain output is causing some of Ukraine’s staunchest allies to waver, as disrupted shipments are redirected onto neighboring markets.
The most striking is Poland, which has played a leading role so far in supporting Ukraine, acting as the main transit hub for Western weaponry and sending plenty of its own. But grain shipments in the other direction have irked Polish farmers who are being undercut — just months before a national election where the rural vote will be crucial.
Diplomats are floundering. After a planned Friday meeting between the Polish and Ukrainian agriculture ministers was postponed, the Polish government on Saturday announced a ban on imports of farm products from Ukraine. Hungary late Saturday said it would do the same.
Ukraine is among the world’s top exporters of wheat and other grains, which are ordinarily shipped to markets as distant as Egypt and Pakistan. Russia’s invasion last year disrupted the main Black Sea export route, and a United Nations-brokered deal to lift the blockade has been only partially effective. In consequence, Ukrainian produce has been diverted to bordering EU countries: Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
At first, those governments supported EU plans to shift the surplus grain. But instead of transiting seamlessly onto global markets, the supply glut has depressed prices in Europe. Farmers have risen up in protest, and Polish Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk was forced out earlier this month.
Now, governments’ focus has shifted to restricting Ukrainian imports to protect their own markets. After hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Warsaw in early April, Polish President Andrzej Duda said resolving the import glut was “a matter of introducing additional restrictions.”
The following day, Poland suspended imports of Ukrainian grain, saying the idea had come from Kyiv. On Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, after an emergency cabinet meeting, said the import ban would cover grain and certain other farm products and would include products intended for other countries. A few hours later, the Hungarian government announced similar measures. Both countries said the bans would last until the end of June.
The European Commission is seeking further information on the import restrictions from Warsaw and Budapest “to be able to assess the measures,” according to a statement on Sunday. “Trade policy is of EU exclusive competence and, therefore, unilateral actions are not acceptable,” it said.
While the EU’s free-trade agreement with Ukraine prevents governments from introducing tariffs, they still have plenty of tools available to disrupt shipments.
Neighboring countries and nearby Bulgaria have stepped up sanitary checks on Ukrainian grain, arguing they are doing so to protect the health of their own citizens. They have also requested financial support from Brussels and have already received more than €50 million from the EU’s agricultural crisis reserve, with more money on the way.
Restrictions could do further harm to Ukraine’s battered economy, and by extension its war effort. The economy has shrunk by 29.1 percent since the invasion, according to statistics released this month, and agricultural exports are an important source of revenue.
Cracks in the alliance
The trade tensions sit at odds with these countries’ political position on Ukraine, which — with the exception of Hungary — has been strongly supportive. Poland has taken in millions of Ukrainian refugees, while weapons and ammunition flow in the opposite direction; Romania has helped transport millions of tons of Ukrainian corn and wheat.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Poland’s Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki | Omar Marques/Getty Images
Some Western European governments, which had to be goaded by Poland and others into sending heavy weaponry to Kyiv, are quick to point out the change in direction.
“Curious to see that some of these countries are [always] asking for more on sanctions, more on ammunition, etc. But when it affects them, they turn to Brussels begging for financial support,” said one diplomat from a Western country, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Some EU countries also oppose the import restrictions for economic reasons. For instance, Spain and the Netherlands are some of the biggest recipients of Ukrainian grain, which they use to supply their livestock industries.
Politically, though, the Central and Eastern European governments have limited room for maneuver. Poland and Slovakia are both heading into general elections later this year. Bulgaria has had a caretaker government since last year. Romania’s agriculture minister has faced calls to resign, including from a compatriot former EU agriculture commissioner.
And farmers are a strong constituency. Poland’s right-wing Law & Justice (PiS) party won the last general election in 2019 thanks in large part to rural voters. The Ukrainian grain issue has already cost a Polish agriculture minister his job; the government as a whole will have to tread carefully to avoid the same fate.
Poland will deliver four Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine “in the next few days,” President Andrzej Duda said Thursday.
Poland is the first country to formally commit to sending combat planes to Ukraine, which Kyiv says it urgently needs to repel the Russian invasion, which has become a brutal war of attrition in the eastern Donbas region.
“We will be handing over four fully operational planes,” Duda said at a joint press conference with Czech President Petr Pavel, according to French newswire AFP.
Additional planes which are “currently under maintenance” will be “handed over gradually,” Duda added, and Poland will replace the MiGs with American-made F-35s and South Korean FA-50 fighters.
After convincing its Western allies to supply Ukraine with dozens of tanks following a months-long diplomatic marathon, Kyiv has been intensively lobbying its partners in recent weeks to send modern fighter jets.
As he toured European capitals last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made repeated pleas to the U.K. and France to provide modern jets to boost his country’s aging air force, which is mostly made up of Soviet-era planes.
Yet, Kyiv’s allies have been wary of handing over the latest generation of combat planes, such as American F-16s, out of fear it would only serve to further escalate the conflict.
So far, the U.K. has started training Ukrainian pilots as a “first step” toward sending jets, while the U.S. has welcomed two pilots on an American airbase to assess their flying skills, but will not let them operate American F-16s.
Meanwhile, countries such as France and the Netherlands have expressed openness to the idea, but steered clear of making any formal commitments.
The Polish government — one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 — had already signaled its intention to send jets in recent days.
WARSAW — War? Inflation? Corruption? Nope, the big subject dominating Poland’s politics ahead of this fall’s parliamentary election is the legacy of John Paul II.
Although the canonized Polish pontiff has been dead since 2005, he’s become the hottest subject in Poland following an explosive documentary aired by the U.S.-owned broadcaster TVN, alleging that when he was a cardinal in his home city of Kraków, he protected priests accused of sexually molesting children.
That caused a collective meltdown in the ranks of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is closely allied with the powerful Roman Catholic Church.
U.S. Ambassador Mark Brzezinski was even summoned (later toned down to “invited”) to appear at the foreign ministry.
In a statement, the ministry said it “recognizes that the potential outcome of these activities is in line with the goals of a hybrid war aimed at causing divisions and tensions within Polish society.”
PiS also pushed through a parliamentary resolution “in defense of the good name of Pope John Paul II.”
“The [parliament] strongly condemns the shameful campaign conducted by the media … against the Great Pope St. John Paul II, the greatest Pole in history,” the resolution said.
The government and its affiliated media have launched a wide-ranging campaign about John Paul II. A gigantic picture of the pope was projected on the façade of the presidential palace in Warsaw. Public broadcaster TVP is now airing a daily papal sermon.
Papal politics
It’s all a political play, as PiS has found what it hopes will be electoral rocket fuel ahead of the election, said Ben Stanley, an associate professor at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.
“Defending John Paul II offers PiS an opportunity to show they’re on what they claim is the right side of a dispute that poses authentic Polish values against something inauthentic and suspicious,” Stanley said.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki over the weekend accused the opposition of “being ashamed of the most important countryman in the history of the republic.”
The party has a track record of finding wedge issues ahead of elections.
In 2015, during the refugee crisis, the party’s leader accused migrants of importing “all sorts of parasites and protozoa” into Europe.
In 2020, PiS-supported President Andrzej Duda helped galvanize his reelection campaign by launching attacks on LGBTQ+ activists as supporting an ideology that was inimical to Polish values.
In recent months, state-backed media has latched on to climate concerns from opposition politicians by accusing them of aiming to force Poles to drop their beloved pork cutlets and replace them with edible insects.
“You will notice that the debate about eating insects and living in 15-minute cities has all but disappeared now. John Paul II has a lot more potential,” Stanley said.
Although Poland is secularizing, with a steady fall in new priests, a decline in people attending Sunday mass, and large numbers of pupils abandoning religious education, the country is still one of the most Catholic in Europe. The Church still has an outsized influence among the elderly and those in smaller towns and villages — PiS’s electoral strongholds.
The JP2 gambit caught the opposition flat-footed; many of their supporters tend to be more secular, but the parties can’t risk offending religious voters if they hope to win power this fall.
Powerful pontiff
The late pope is often credited with helping cause the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe; his pilgrimages to his home country were seen as a key factor in the rise of the Solidarity labor union in 1980. He remains a revered figure across the country.
Civic Platform, Poland’s biggest opposition party, sat out the vote on the papal defense resolution. The party accused PiS of playing politics with the issue.
“You don’t want to defend John Paul II, you want to sign him up to PiS!” Paweł Kowal, an MP for Civic Platform, said during the parliamentary debate on the resolution.
While the opposition dithered, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, the head of the country’s conference of bishops, denounced the reports on John Paul II as “shocking attempts to discredit his person and work, made under the guise of concern for the truth and good.”
Uncomfortably for the Polish church, Pope Francis put out a pretty lukewarm defense of his predecessor | Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images
It’s not just TVN accusing John Paul II of turning a blind eye to clerical pedophiles.
Similar allegations are made in a new book by Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek, “Maxima Culpa: John Paul II Knew,” which says when he was a bishop, John Paul II moved pedophile priests from parish to parish to keep them from being discovered.
Both the book and the TVN documentary are being attacked for relying on communist-era secret policy archives.
TVN, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, responded by saying: “The role of free and reliable media is to report the facts, even if they are painful and difficult to accept.” It also stressed that the author of the documentary didn’t only rely on archived files, but also contacted people who had been abused by priests.
Uncomfortably for the Polish church, Pope Francis put out a pretty lukewarm defense of his predecessor.
“It is necessary to place things in their time … at that time, everything was covered up,” he told Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper.
With several months to go before the vote, PiS will now watch to see if John Paul II is gaining traction as an issue, Stanley said.
“Pushing it too hard is potentially risky because it’s no longer the early 2000s and it’s not so clear this time if that many people, especially the young people, will spring to John Paul II’s defense,” he said.
U.S. President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv, Ukraine Monday in a show of solidarity, nearly a year after Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country.
Biden said in a White House statement that he was meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”
“I will announce another delivery of critical equipment, including artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems, and air surveillance radars to help protect the Ukrainian people from aerial bombardments,” he added. “And I will share that later this week, we will announce additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade or backfill Russia’s war machine.”
Zelenskyy described Biden’s visit — the first by a U.S. president in almost 15 years — as “the most important visit in the history of Ukrainian-American relations.”
“At this time, when our country is fighting for its freedom and freedom for all Europeans, for all people of the free world, it emphasizes how much we have already achieved and what historical results we can achieve together with the whole world, with Ukraine, with the United States, with the whole of Europe,” he said on Telegram, according to a NBC translation.
The U.S. head of state left the Ukrainian capital after a more than five-hour visit, according to the Associated Press. Biden said that he will continue on to Poland where he will meet his counterpart Andrzej Duda. The Polish president could press Biden on post-war “security guarantees” for Ukraine, which he on Sunday told the Financial Times would be “important” for Kyiv.
Biden’s visit to Ukraine comes after a concerted show of international support from global leaders and politicians during the Munich Security Conference over recent days. Allied forces have pledged financial support and weapons for Ukraine, but have fallen short of Zelenskyy’s pleas for the supply of jet fighters.
On Feb. 18, Biden’s second-in-command, Vice President Kamala Harris, announced that Washington had determined that Russia had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, upgrading the U.S. administration’s March pronouncement that Moscow had committed war crimes.
The latest round of U.S. sanctions will follow the EU’s tenth round of penalties against Russia for its war in Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week that the sanctions will target exports worth 11 billion euros ($11.78 billion), dual use and advanced tech goods, as well as Russian propagandists. The latest EU package is subject to the approval of EU member countries.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Saturday expressed doubts to CNBC’s Hadley Gamble that financial repercussions will deter Putin, however.
“What we have seen is that Russia is actually willing to pay a hard price for this war,” he said.
“There are no signs that President Putin is preparing or planning for peace. He is preparing for more war, or new offensive, mobilizing more troops, setting the Russian economy on a war footing and also actually reaching out to other authoritarian regimes like North Korea and Iran to get more weapons.”
BRUSSELS — With Ukraine’s partners racing to send more weapons to Kyiv amid an emerging Russian offensive, fulfilling Ukrainian requests is becoming trickier.
Ukraine is still waiting for promised deliveries of modern tanks. Combat jets, though much discussed, are mired in the throes of government hesitation.
On top of that, Kyiv is using thousands of rounds of ammunition per day — and Western production simply can’t keep up.
As members of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group gather in Brussels on Tuesday to coordinate arms assistance to Ukraine, they face pressure to expedite delivery and provide even more advanced capabilities to Ukrainian forces.
“We have received good signals,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address following visits to London, Paris and Brussels.
“This applies both to long-range missiles and tanks, and to the next level of our cooperation — combat aircraft,” he said, however adding, “We still need to work on this.”
And while most of Ukraine’s partners are committed to responding to Zelenskyy’s stump tour with expanded support as the conflict threatens to escalate, Western governments will have to overcome political and practical hurdles.
“It is clear that we are in a race of logistics,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday. “Key capabilities like ammunition, fuel, and spare parts must reach Ukraine before Russia can seize the initiative on the battlefield.”
Existing and future supply of weapons to Ukraine will both be on the table when the defense group — made up of about 50 countries and popularly known at the Ramstein format — meets at NATO headquarters.
NATO allies will also hold a meeting of defense ministers directly afterward to hear the latest assessment from Ukrainian counterparts and discuss the alliance’s future defense challenges.
Ukrainian officials will use the session, which would typically be held at the U.S. base in Ramstein, Germany, to share their latest needs with Western officials — from air defense to ground logistics — while it will also be a venue for Kyiv’s supporters to check in on implementation of earlier pledges and availabilities in the near future.
The aim of the session, said a senior European diplomat, is “to step up military support as much as needed — not only commitments, but actual speedy deliverables is of particular significance.”
“Tanks are needed not on paper but in the battlefield,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of discussions.
Ammo, ammo, ammo
One of the most pressing issues on the table in Brussels this week is how to keep the weapons already sent to Ukraine firing.
“Of course it is important to discuss new systems, but the most urgent need is to ensure that all the systems which are already there, or have been pledged, are delivered and work as they should,” Stoltenberg said.
During meetings with EU heads on Thursday, Zelenskyy and his team provided each leader with an individualized list requesting weapons and equipment based on the country’s known stocks and capabilities.
But there was one common theme.
“The first thing on the list was, everywhere, the ammunition,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said.
“If you have the equipment and you don’t have the ammunition, then it’s no use,” the Estonian leader told reporters on Friday.
And while Ukraine is in dire need of vast amounts of ammo to keep fighting, Western countries’ own stocks are running low.
“It’s a very real concern,” said Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe. “None of us, including the United States, is producing enough ammunition right now,” he said in a phone interview on Sunday.
Munitions will also be top of mind at the session of NATO defense ministers on Wednesday, who will discuss boosting production of weapons, ammunition and equipment, along with future defense spending targets for alliance members.
Boosting stockpiles and production, Stoltenberg emphasized on Monday, “requires more defense expenditure by NATO allies.”
Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty images
And while the NATO chief said some progress has been made on work with industry on plans to boost stockpile targets, some current and former officials have expressed frustration about the pace of work.
Kallas last week raised the idea of joint EU purchases to help spur production and hasten deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, although it’s not clear whether this plan would enjoy sufficient support within the bloc — and how fast it could have an impact.
Hodges thinks companies need a clearer demand signal from governments. “We need industry to do more,” he said.
But he noted, “These are not charities … they are commercial businesses, and so you have to have an order with money before they start making it.”
Jets fight fails to take off (for now)
Fighter jets are a priority ask for Ukrainian officials, although Western governments seem not yet ready to make concrete commitments.
Numerous countries have expressed openness to eventually providing Ukraine with jets, indicating that the matter is no longer a red line. Regardless, hesitation remains.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg | Valeria Mongelli/AFP via Getty Images
The U.K. has gone the furthest so far, announcing that it will train Ukrainian pilots on fighter jets. But when it comes to actually providing aircraft, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace cautioned that “this is not a simple case of towing an aircraft to the border.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda, meanwhile, said sending F-16 aircraft would be a “very serious decision” which is “not easy to take,” arguing that his country does not have enough jets itself.
For some potential donors, the jets debate revolves around both timing and utility.
“The essential question is: What do they want to do with planes? It’s not clear,” said one French diplomat, who was unauthorized to speak publicly. “Do they think that with 50 or 100 fighter jets, they can retake the Donbas?” the diplomat said.
The diplomat said there is no point in training Ukrainians on Western jets now. “It’ll take over six months to train them, so it doesn’t respond to their immediate imperatives.”
But, the diplomat added, “maybe some countries should give them MiGs, planes that they can actually fly.”
Slovakia is in fact moving closer to sending MiG-29 jets to Ukraine.
“We want to do it,” said a Slovak official who was not at liberty to disclose their identity. “But we must work out the details on how,” the official said, adding that a domestic process and talks with Ukraine still need to take place.
No big jet announcements are expected at the Tuesday meeting, though the issue is likely to be discussed.
Where are the tanks?
And while Western governments have already — with great fanfare — struck a deal to provide Ukraine with modern tanks, questions over actual deliveries will also likely come up at Tuesday’s meeting.
Germany’s leadership in particular has stressed it’s time for countries that supported the idea of sending tanks to live up to their rhetoric.
“Germany is making a very central contribution to ensuring that we provide rapid support, as we have done in the past,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is shown an anti-aircraft gun tank Gepard | Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images
“We are striving to ensure that many others who have come forward in the past now follow up on this finger-pointing with practical action,” he went on. Germany’s goal is for Ukraine to receive tanks by the end of March, and training has already begun.
Along with tanks, another pending request that Ukrainian officials will likely bring up this week is long-range missiles.
Hodges, who has been advocating for the West to give Ukraine the weapons it would need to retake Crimea, said he believes long-range precision weapons are the key. “That’s how you defeat mass with precision.”
Any such weapon, he argued, “has got to be at the top of the list.”
Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting from Paris and Hans von der Buchard contributed from Berlin.
BERLIN — Olaf Scholz has once again rebooted his security policy, nominating a new defense minister to take the reins. But when it comes to his reluctance to send battle tanks to Ukraine, the German chancellor is still waiting for the U.S. to take the lead.
Tuesday’s nomination of Boris Pistorius puts an end to a growing government crisis that had left Europe’s biggest economy for several days effectively without clear military leadership. But Pistorius — whom Scholz hailed as having “the strength and calmness that is needed in view of the Zeitenwende,” Germany’s historic military revamp — will have little time to get adjusted to the new role.
Pressure is mounting on Germany to participate in a broader alliance of countries that would supply Ukraine’s army with modern Leopard 2 battle tanks. And moments after being sworn in on Thursday, the new defense minister is scheduled to meet U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is coming to Berlin before a key meeting Friday in Germany where allies will discuss tank deliveries for Ukraine.
Pistorius is replacing Christine Lambrecht, a loyal defender of Scholz’s cautious tank stance who resigned on Monday after a series of gaffes and missteps that weighed on Berlin’s reputation.
That means expectations are high for the 62-year-old Pistorius, who is from Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Yet Social Democratic lawmakers say the appointment by itself won’t tilt the scales on supplying Ukraine with tanks.
“I don’t think one has anything to do with the other,” Wolfgang Hellmich, the SPD’s defense policy spokesperson, told POLITICO.
Kristian Klinck, an SPD member of the Bundestag’s defense committee and an army reserve officer, also said he didn’t see “any significant change in this regard because of the personnel change in the defense ministry.”
While stressing that Pistorius will play a role in deciding on further military aid for Ukraine, Klinck said “this very important question of the delivery of battle tanks” would be decided “primarily in the chancellor’s office” and in coordination with other allies.
Scholz himself reiterated his reluctant position during an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, saying that any decisions on further weapon supplies could only be taken in close coordination with allies.
That argument for holding back tank deliveries has started to sound less convincing, however, given the calls from allies like Poland to jointly send Leopards, and after the U.K. announced it would supply Ukraine with its own Challenger 2 battle tanks.
German officials have indicated, though, that Scholz would likely move if he received backing from the U.S., especially if Washington also agreed to send battle tanks.
During a call between Scholz and U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday, both leaders discussed “effective, sustainable and closely coordinated” military support for Ukraine, according to a German spokesperson. This has raised expectations that a breakthrough on tanks could still be feasible.
Pressure on Scholz
Green MP Anton Hofreiter, chair of the Bundestag’s European affairs committee and a long-standing critic of Scholz’s cautious position, said it was time for the chancellor to act.
“The decision to supply tanks ultimately rests with the chancellor. Behind him is his Social Democratic Party, which unfortunately is still often under the illusion that relations with Russia can be normalized again and that Moscow should therefore not be provoked too much,” Hofreiter told POLITICO.
Anton Hofreiter, co-head of the German Green Party Bundestag faction | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Hofreiter, whose Green party is part of Germany’s government coalition alongside Scholz’s SPD and the pro-business Free Democratic Party, argued Germany was presenting “an unclear, wavering and hesitant picture” of its military support for Ukraine.
“Allies are now watching Berlin very closely: If we continue to close our minds on the Leopard issue, Germany would be increasingly isolated in Europe,” he said.
Scholz’s vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, also from the Greens, upped the pressure on the chancellor last week, saying Berlin should not stand in the way if allies like Poland, Finland or Spain want to send their own Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine — an important demand because Berlin must authorize any re-export of the German-made battle tanks.
The government’s deputy spokesperson later clarified that there were “no differences” on the issue between Habeck and Scholz, suggesting the chancellor would support his deputy’s line.
The remarks raised expectations that Berlin may use Friday’s meeting to at least give its allies the green light on sending Leopard tanks. But it remains uncertain whether Scholz will join the coalition and offer Germany’s own tanks, either from the German army or defense industry stocks.
Scholz said Tuesday that he would not debate these questions in public.
There are also questions in Germany about whether the recent political crisis within the defense ministry has left Scholz weakened. Scholz personally chose Lambrecht and defended her until the end, despite concerns she had failed to properly spend a reject influx of defense funds and let Germany’s ammunition stockpiles run low (in addition to her gaffes and waning standing among the military).
The SPD’s Hellmich, however, expressed optimism that these shortcomings would now improve with the newly appointed minister.
“Boris Pistorius has been in the political business for a long time and is knowledgeable on the subject. He sits on the defense committee of the Bundesrat [Germany’s upper house of parliament] and is a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly,” Hellmich said.
“That’s why the troops are in good hands with him.”
This article was updated to include details of a call between Olaf Scholz and Joe Biden.
For years, they’ve locked horns with EU leaders who accuse them of flouting the rule of law, oppressing minorities, and maintaining unsavory ties with foreign regimes such as Vladimir Putin’s in Russia.
But now, as a corruption scandal engulfs Brussels, ensnaring a senior figure of the center-left, Europe’s far-right leaders feel that the shoe is on the other foot — and they are going on the attack against a pro-EU establishment that they say has presided over massive corruption while lecturing them about how to run their countries.
The upshot is that right-wingers ranging from France’s Marine Le Pen to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Polish President Andrzej Duda may seek to turn the scandal into a political weapon — as leverage in rule-of-law disputes with Brussels and to whip up anti-EU sentiment ahead of European Parliament elections in 2024.
“They dragged us through the mud over a totally transparent and legal loan from a Czech Russian bank,” National Rally chief Le Pen tweeted, referring to a €9 million loan her party secured in 2014. “At the same time, Qatar was delivering suitcases full of cash to all these corrupt people who are supposedly in the ‘camp of the good.’”
In Hungary, Orbán, who’s locked in an epic struggle with Brussels over rule-of-law failings in his country, mocked the EU in a tweet of his own, writing that the Parliament was “seriously concerned about corruption in Hungary” over a photograph of world leaders doubled over with laughter.
Polish lawmakers from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is also at odds with Brussels over rule-of-law infringements, struck a similar note, pointing out that MEP Eva Kaili, the most prominent suspect in the Qatar corruption case, had been a vocal critic of their country.
“The question arises: Where is the problem with the rule of law? In Poland or in the European Union?” said Dominik Tarczyński, an MEP with the ruling Polish party.
“The European Parliament is not a transparent institution, and support for Socialists like Eva Kaili exposes the values of the European Parliament and ridicules this EU institution,” said Bogdan Rzońca, another PiS lawmaker.
Political impact
The cries of hypocrisy from the European far-right came as Belgian police carried out further raids on Tuesday, sealing off more offices in the European Parliament.
Four people, including Kaili and her Italian partner, Francesco Giorgi, remain in police custody on charges of corruption, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization. Kaili is set to appear before a Belgian judge on Wednesday.
The EU’s top officials, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Parliament President Roberta Metsola, have lined up to condemn the finding in stark terms, vowing to crack down on corruption across all of the EU’s institutions, which employ more than 60,000 people across the bloc.
But for the far-right, which in many countries casts itself as the enemy of “lesson-giving” EU bureaucrats, those words rang hollow as they said the allegations uncovered since last Friday only underscore the double standards of EU elites who are quick to condemn Poland and Hungary but fail to clean up on their own doorstep.
“The European Union loves to give lessons to the entire world. It gives lessons to Hungary. It gives lessons to Poland. It even gives lessons to [European border agency] Frontex. It would do much better to start cleaning its own house,” said Philippe Olivier, a National Rally MEP and close aide to Le Pen.
The probe was likely to draw in further people, including from other political groups in Parliament, and would increase scrutiny on von der Leyen, who’s under pressure over the terms of a deal she negotiated with Pfizer to buy COVID-19 vaccines, he added.
Less than two years before EU voters head to the polls to elect a new Parliament, Olivier predicted that the corruption scandal would have a political impact in France, where Le Pen has twice reached the final round of a presidential election, only to be defeated both times by the centrist Emmanuel Macron.
“People already have the feeling that the EU is a giant rule-making machine with no oversight,” he said. “This only adds to the picture, so I’m optimistic.”
Even on the left, some politicians acknowledged that the allegations, which so far concern members of the Socialists and Democrats group in Parliament, would be damaging because they create an equivalency between socialists accused of taking money from Qatar and right-wingers who have taken money from Russia.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s prime minister has appealed for Patriot missile batteries and other high-tech air defense systems to counter Russian attacks that knocked out electricity and water supplies for millions of Ukrainians, putting Europe on alert Monday to brace for more refugees.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told French broadcaster LCI that in addition to making Ukrainians suffer, Russia wants to swamp Europe with a new wave of Ukrainian refugees by continuing to strike power stations and other infrastructure.
Poland’s president said his nation already has seen an increased demand to shelter refugees due to the combination of such attacks coupled with the freezing weather in Ukraine.
“The number of refugees in Poland has risen (recently) to some 3 million. That will probably also mean an increase in their numbers in Germany,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said following talks with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin.
Millions of Ukrainians fled their country after Russia invaded on Feb. 24. Thousands of people have died and dozens of cities and towns across Ukraine have been reduced to rubble during a war now in its 10th month. On Monday, Russia shelling again mostly focused on eastern and southern regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed.
To defend against further strikes, Shmyhal reiterated previous Ukrainian calls for Patriot surface-to-air missiles — a highly sophisticated system. During an interview with LCI that aired Sunday night, he also asked for more German and French air-defense systems, resupplies of artillery shells and modern battle tanks.
Organizers in France expect more than 45 nations and 20 international institutions to take part in a Paris conference starting Tuesday to raise and coordinate aid for Ukraine’s water, power, food, health and transportation needs during the tough winter months.
The provision of Patriot missiles to Ukraine would mark a major advance in the kinds of air defense systems the West is sending to help the country repel Russian aerial attacks. So far, no country has offered them, and such a step would likely mark an escalation in the fight against Russia.
U.S. officials have said they were considering providing Ukraine with Patriot missile batteries. But Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told reporters recently there were no plans to send the complex, high-tech system.
“We’ll continue to have those discussions,” he said. He added, “None of these systems are plug-and-play. You can’t just show up on the battlefield and start using them.”
Air defenses were also a topic of a phone call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held Sunday with U.S. President Joe Biden. Zelenskyy, his office said, told Biden “about 50% of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure was destroyed.”
Biden “highlighted how the U.S. is prioritizing efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense through our security assistance, including the Dec. 9 announcement of $275 million in additional ammunition and equipment that included systems to counter the Russian use of unmanned aerial vehicles,” the White House said.
Russian drone attacks near the Black Sea port of Odesa over the weekend destroyed several energy facilities and left all customers except hospitals, maternity homes, boiler plants and pumping stations without power.
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, completed a four-day visit to Ukraine, including Odesa, on Monday. She said she “saw how families have been torn apart and how power cuts and freezing temperatures have increased the suffering for too many during this difficult winter.”
The European Union’s foreign ministers gathered Monday in Brussels to discuss fresh sanctions to further punish Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney sharply condemned “deliberate targeting by Russia of civilians in terms of inflicting suffering on a broad population.” He described Russia’s actions as “a crime, in terms of both aggression and a crime against humanity.”
Slovakia said that in cooperation with Germany, it has opened a center to repair Ukrainian arms of Western origin. The center is located inside a military base in the town of Michalovce, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) west of the border with Ukraine, the EU member nation’s Defense Ministry said. Howitzers and air defense systems are among the arms to be fixed there.
In Ukraine, the eastern Donbas, which is made up of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, again has become a focus of intense fighting, particularly around the city of Bakhmut.
Ukrainian officials said Monday the country’s forces hit a hotel in the Luhansk region that served as a headquarters of the Wagner Group, a private Russian military contractor and mercenary group that has played a prominent role in eastern Ukraine.
The region’s Ukrainian governor, Serhiy Haidai, said hundreds of Russians were killed in the strike on Kadiivka on Sunday. Moscow-backed local officials in Luhansk confirmed that a Ukrainian strike destroyed a hotel building in Kadiivka but claimed it was unused.
The Ukrainian mayor of the southeastern town of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, reported that Ukraine also attacked a hotel that reportedly housed analysts from Russia’s top security agency, the FSB. Moscow did not comment on that claim, and none of the reports could be independently confirmed.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said Monday that two civilians were killed and 10 were wounded in Russia’s shelling of the town of Hirnyk in the Donetsk region.
“It was yet another Russian attack against civilians,” Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on his Telegram messaging app channel.
Kherson Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said a Russian strike on the southern city of the same name, which Ukraine reclaimed a month ago, killed two civilians and left five wounded Monday. He said the Russian shelling hit residential buildings and damaged power lines. Yanushevych urged city residents to move to shelters.
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Leicester reported from Le Pecq, France.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
