Russia is waging a “civilizational war” against the West and views NATO, including Poland, as its “main enemy,” Karol Nawrocki has said.
The Polish president warned that Moscow would continue to threaten states along NATO’s eastern flank through “large-scale hybrid warfare and influence operations.”
Nawrocki made the remarks on Wednesday during a meeting with Poland’s top military and security leadership, including Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, Wiesław Kukuła.
“Russia sees the North Atlantic Alliance as its main enemy in the civilizational war it is waging against the West. It consistently views Poland and the entire NATO in this way,” Nawrocki said.
He added that Moscow’s use of hybrid warfare tactics and influence-spreading operations are designed to test the alliance’s cohesion.
“We must be prepared to respond to a series of events and incidents below the threshold of war that will test our resilience,” the head of state said.
‘We must be prepared’
European authorities have accused Moscow of orchestrating a growing wave of sabotage operations across the continent since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In Poland, investigators last year linked a suspected attempt to sabotage railway lines in the country’s east – a key corridor for transporting Western weapons to Ukraine – to two Ukrainian men accused of working on behalf of Russian intelligence.
Officials say such activities form part of Moscow’s broader hybrid warfare campaign, aimed at weakening Western support for Kyiv, sowing social unrest and testing Europe’s resilience.
Anti-Western bloc
Nawrocki also warned that Russia is increasingly cooperating with China and forming a broader bloc of states that could challenge the West’s notion of the international order.
“Unfortunately, Europe is becoming one of the key theatres of this rivalry,” he said.
The president, who is backed by Poland’s main right-wing opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, said that deepening Warsaw’s strategic partnership with the United States and bolstering the American military presence in Poland are among the priorities of his presidency.
Poland, a NATO member state that borders war-torn Ukraine, Moscow-aligned Belarus and shares a 210-kilometer land border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, has been on high alert since September, when nearly 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace during a large-scale attack on western Ukraine.
On Tuesday, which marked the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Nawrocki warned that “Russian aggression against Ukraine is a serious threat to the security of all of Europe.”