10 Monday April 4 2022 | the times
News
US urged to
put nuclear
weapons on
Polish soil
Bruno Waterfield operations can be planned and
conducted”.
He said: “That would send a clear sig-
nal to Moscow: the Nato leadership is
now also present in the east,” and urged
Washington to increase troop numbers
“from the present 100,000 soldiers up
to 150,000 in the future due to Russia’s
increasing aggression. Of these, 75,
soldiers should be stationed on the east-
ern flank, on the border with Russia,
with 50,000 soldiers in the Baltic states
and Poland.”
Kaczynski, 72, criticised Germany
and France for having a “strong bias in
Moscow’s favour”, but reserved his
harshest words for Berlin. He said: “I
am very dissatisfied with the behaviour
of the German government. Germany
could supply more weapons. And Ger-
many could speak out in favour of an oil
embargo in the EU. Over the years the
German government did not want to
see what Russia was doing under the
leadership of Putin and we see the
result today.”
Poland is the leader of a “sanction-
ista” bloc of EU countries pressing hard
against Germany, Italy, Hungary,
Bulgaria and Greece for tougher
economic sanctions against Russia,
prioritising an embargo on oil.
Oil exports have been worth some
€8.5 billion to Russia since it invaded
Ukraine, and Germany is dependent on
Russian imports for a third of its supply.
“We cannot continue permanently
to support a great power like Russia by
paying it billions,” Kaczynski said. “This
is inadmissible from a political and
moral point of view. This has to come to
an end, and Germany should finally
take a clear stance on this.”
Poland, particularly the governing
PiS party, has repeatedly denounced
Germany’s role within wider European
politics, with Kaczynski previously
referring to German EU policy as
tantamount to a “fourth Reich”.
During negotiations in 2007 on a new
EU treaty, he demanded a greater
voting weight on Brussels’ council of
ministers and asked leaders to compen-
sate Poland for the “unimaginable
injury” of losing of almost 20 per cent of
its population at the hands of Nazis in
the Second World War.
“Poland is not pleased with
Germany’s role in Europe,” he said,
accusing today’s Germany of emulating
Bismarck’s 19th-century policy of pre-
venting Polish independence to ensure
“German domination but side by side
with Russia”.
Andriy Melnyk, Ukraine’s
ambassador to Germany, attacked
President Steinmeier of Germany, a
Social Democrat, yesterday for “creat-
ing a spider’s web of contacts with
Russia over decades”.
Speaking to Berlin’s Tagesspiegel
Sonntag newspaper, Melnyk said: “For
Steinmeier, the relationship with
Russia was and remains something
fundamental, even sacred, no matter
what happens.”
From the ruins Unusual celebrations for two newlywed volunteers, named as Anastasia and Anton, included posing in anHosts to American bombs
Four countries in mainland Europe
plus Turkey have American nuclear
weapons on their soil for Nato’s
deterrent (David Charter writes).
Since the end of the Cold War the
US arsenal has consisted of air-
launched tactical nuclear bombs,
kept under guard by the US Air
Force at two bases in Italy and one
each in Belgium, Germany, the
Netherlands and Turkey. They are
kept in vaults and can be deployed
by the national air force.
Britain and France have their own
nuclear weapons, which only the UK
commits to Nato under the alliance’s
Article 5 pledge that all members
will come to the aid of one that
comes under armed attack.
Seven more European nations are
in the Support of Nuclear
Operations With Conventional Air
Tactics (SNOWCAT) group and
provide conventional air support:
the Czech Republic, Denmark,
Greece, Hungary, Norway, Poland
and Romania. All 30 members of the
alliance apart from France are part
of Nato’s nuclear planning group.
Nuclear-capable US aircraft have
been based in the UK since 1949 but
the last US nuclear weapons were
withdrawn in 2006. Greece hosted
US nuclear weapons until 2001.Finland may apply to join Nato within
weeks in reaction to Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine despite Moscow’s threats of
military retaliation if Helsinki signs up
to the transatlantic alliance.
Sanna Marin, the Finnish prime
minister, said that the country would
decide whether or not to join Nato
“during this spring” as public support
for the alliance shoots up.
She said that Finland’s relationship
with Russia — with which it shares an
830-mile border — had changed since
President Putin ordered troops into
Ukraine on February 24.
“We must keep in mind our goal:
ensuring the security of Finland and
Finns in all situations,” Marin said.
Putin used the possibility of Ukraine
joining Nato to justify his invasion but
the war has encouraged states such as
Finland and Sweden to consider
membership, which has in turn
incurred the Kremlin’s wrath.
Russia warned Finland in February
to stay out of Nato and last month
Sergei Belyayev, head of the Russian
foreign ministry’s European depart-
ment, repeated the threat, stating that
there would be “serious military and
political consequences” in the event ofFinland may ask to join Nato in weeks
it joining, which he said meant
“retaliatory measures”.
That has not deterred Finns from
wanting to join, with a poll last week
conducted by Kantar TNS showing
61 per cent in favour, up from the 20 per
cent to 25 per cent figure that had held
steady for years.
After Finland halted its passenger
rail services between Helsinki and
St Petersburg last week, Pekka
Haavisto, Finland’s foreign minister,
said that Russia’s attack on Ukraine had
“totally changed the security landscape
in Finland”.
Finland’s security and intelligence
agency, Supo, has warned that the
country should expect a sharp increase
in Russian cyberattacks as well as
attempts to blackmail politicians in
favour of joining Nato.
Denial-of-service attacks and the
defacing of websites would become
more common, while “businesses must
continually ensure that the control
circuitry of critical infrastructure such
as energy distribution systems cannot
be accessed directly from the public
network”, the agency said last week.
Fake allegations of abuse of native Rus-
sians living in Finland could be used to
justify aggression, the agency added.
“Finnish society as a whole should beprepared for various measures from
Russia seeking to influence policymak-
ing in Finland on the Nato issue,” it said.
Magdalena Andersson, Sweden’s
prime minister, has reversed her
opposition to joining Nato, saying that
she is not ruling out membership after
the Ukraine invasion. A Swedish poll in
late February found that 41 per cent of
Swedes favoured joining against 35 per
cent who were opposed to it — the first
time more Swedes were in favour than
against.
The bloodshed in Ukraine has
reminded Finns of the 1939 winter war,
when it was invaded by the Soviet
Union. Among the 12,000 foreign
volunteers who enrolled to defend
Finland, which had a population of
3.7 million, was the Briton Christopher
Lee, who later gained fame as an actor.
The Soviets were accused of shelling
their own border post in a false flag
operation to justify the invasion, which
took months as Russian tanks and
troops were held back by nimble
Finnish guerilla attacks and the bitter
cold.
Vladimir Putin has justified that war
by claiming that it was aimed at
“correcting mistakes” made when
Russia’s border with Finland was drawn
up in 1917.Tom Kington RomePoland is open to hosting US nuclear
weapons to protect itself against
Russian aggression.
The move, should it happen, would
be a significant escalation in a new Cold
War with Russia and would be viewed
as a provocation by Putin. Support for a
US nuclear shield came yesterday from
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the country’s
deputy prime minister and founder and
leader of the ruling Law and Justice
(PiS) party, who is often dubbed
Poland’s chief of state.
“Basically, it makes sense to expand
nuclear sharing to the eastern flank,” he
told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, in
a reference to Nato’s northeastern
members Poland and the Baltic states.
“If the Americans asked us to store US
nuclear weapons in Poland, we would
be open to that. It would significantly
increase deterrence towards Moscow.”
Poland is pushing for “a large
operational Nato command in Poland”,
Kaczynski said, such as the allied
air command in the Netherlands at
Brunssum, “where joint Nato
Support for the
shield came from
the deputy prime
minister, Jaroslaw
KaczynskiNews War in Ukraine