
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has warned that Russia may be preparing a major operation this year and could stage a fake attack to justify further mobilization.
"We are receiving information, we are not revealing the sources, but there is a lot of it, that Russia is preparing something big this year," Sikorski said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Thursday, according to local media.
"I believe that Putin needs a pretext for mobilization, in order to carry out a fake attack and tell the Russian people: 'We are under attack and therefore we must mobilize,'" he added.
Sikorski did not specify what the reported operation might involve. Asked about possible scenarios, he said the Belarusians were concerned about being drawn into the war in Ukraine.
He also warned that Baltic states with Russian minorities could face escalation, saying NATO must be ready to deter potential aggression. A full-scale Russian invasion of a NATO member would be “crazy,” he said, suggesting that Moscow might instead pursue a less obvious course of action that would make it harder for the alliance to invoke Article 5’s mutual defense clause.
Sikorski said Russia could continue its war in Ukraine for another year or two despite economic pressure unless Ukrainian attacks destroy more than half of its oil refinery capacity.