A blow against Russia on the open stage of world politics

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is not only a diplomat - he is also a polemicist. At the UN Security Council, he spoke out: Russia cannot restore a dead empire. And he threatened to shoot down Russian planes if the provocations continued.

Radosław Sikorski is known for his harsh, often undiplomatic language. This has also cost him in the past: he has not been elected either as the EU's high representative for foreign policy or as NATO secretary general, although his name was often in the discussion as a candidate.

With his appearance at the UN Security Council last week, the Polish foreign minister once again attracted a lot of attention - both from security experts and on social media, where parts of his speech went viral. The world organization's highest body met at the request of Estonia to discuss Russian provocations with drones and fighter jets in NATO airspace.

Sikorski sees the incidents in Estonia and Poland as an escalation of the hybrid war that Russia has been waging against the West for years. This includes, he says, the assassinations of politicians, journalists, human rights activists and fugitives, as well as arson attacks - in Poland, the UK and Lithuania, among others - as well as espionage and disinformation campaigns.

“These provocations must not be tolerated,” Sikorski said. He then addressed the Russian representatives in the hall directly: “We know that you do not respect international law and are unable to coexist peacefully with your neighbors. Your delusional nationalism contains a lust for power that will not be extinguished until you understand that the era of empires is over and that your empire can no longer be rebuilt. Every drone strike by the heroes of the Ukrainian armed forces, God bless them, brings that day closer.”

Sikorski stated that Russia's "special operation" in ten years has not even managed to occupy the Ukrainian Donbas region. At the same time, he warned that the Kremlin's potential for criminal and catastrophic mistakes still exists.

As expected, the Russian deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polanski, called the accusations lies, “phobic hysteria” and “paranoia.” However, for the European delegations present at the Security Council, another message was more important: US representative Michael Waltz stressed that the United States and its allies would defend “every inch of NATO territory.”

This clarity was in stark contrast to Donald Trump's vague statements about Russian provocations in the Baltic Sea. However, there is no reason for triumphalism: in the end, the White House chief of staff decides whether to implement Article 5 of the NATO treaty - the pledge of mutual assistance of the 32 members.

At the end of his speech, Sikorski issued a strong warning to Russia: “If another missile or another aircraft enters our space without permission, intentionally or accidentally, and crashes into NATO territory, don’t come here and cry about it. You have been warned.”
Sikorski (62) is an experienced diplomat. From 2007 to 2014 he headed the Polish Foreign Ministry; he has been at the helm again since 2023. As a high school student in the early 1980s, he became politically involved, initially in the anti-communist Solidarity movement. After General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland, Sikorski fled to the UK, where he was granted asylum and studied political science and philosophy at Oxford. He later reported for the British media on the wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

After the fall of communism, Sikorski returned to Warsaw. He initially aligned himself with conservative parties; later, as an independent, he participated in a government led by the right-wing PiS party of brothers Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński, where he served as defense minister. After breaking off relations with PiS, he became foreign minister in the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

In 2014, Sikorski led an EU mission that ended the bloodshed on Kiev's Maidan Square. The American magazine Foreign Policy included him among the 100 most influential political intellectuals in the world – "because he speaks the truth, even when it's not diplomatic."

Sikorski is married to renowned American historian Anne Applebaum and is considered one of the diplomats with the closest connections in both Brussels and Washington.

Earlier this year, he publicly clashed with Elon Musk, who threatened to cut off the Ukrainian military's internet access. Sikorski reminded him that Poland was covering the costs of the Starlink satellite network as part of aid to Ukraine, which was under attack by Russia. Musk responded with his own dismissive tone, writing on X: "Calm down, little man" – but later backed down.

Sikorski is not only a talented polemicist, but also made a name for himself as a war photographer. His most famous photograph shows the body of an Afghan mother with her children - in 1988 he received the World Press Photo Award for it.