Ukrainian Domestic — 2026-08-02

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski Says Putin Running Out of Money and Worst Is Behind Ukraine in Long Game Interview

BLUFWarsaw is using a friendly American platform to normalize European defense self-sufficiency as settled policy rather than aspiration, conditioning Washington to expect reduced allied dependence on US force posture.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told podcast hosts Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer on The Long Game, recorded the day after a White House meeting, that Russia has lost battlefield initiative and Vladimir Putin is depleting financial resources he cannot replace 12. Sikorski said Poland now spends 4.8 percent of GDP on hard defense, 7 percent including dual-use spending, and that the EU's SAFE mechanism has issued nearly 150 billion euros in soft loans, with Poland receiving about a third 1. He said a direct Russian assault on NATO would require force concentrations that Western intelligence would detect well in advance, and that he instead watches for a staged provocation, citing a September incursion of 21 drones into Poland and a cruise missile that landed 10 kilometers from his home 1. Pravda Poland reported Sikorski said the EU has already spent more than 200 billion euros supporting Ukraine with another 90 billion pledged, that the EU should stop seeking US protection for regional interventions, and cited a European Earth-observation system and a satellite constellation targeted for completion by the end of the decade to provide mobile internet service, arguing an end to US space monopoly would lower prices 3.

Analysis
The interview functions as a public signal to Washington that Warsaw now treats European conventional capability, not US troop presence, as its primary deterrent; this framing is consistent with Poland's ongoing defense buildup rather than a new policy shift. Sikorski's threshold for genuine invasion risk, mass force concentration detectable well in advance, narrows the scenarios NATO must treat as existential, while his catalog of smaller incidents frames those as the more immediate and recurring test of alliance resolve. Delivered to a sympathetic American podcast audience rather than a Polish or EU policy forum, the remarks carry less institutional weight than a formal government statement and reflect one minister's framing rather than a coordinated Warsaw or Brussels position.

3 sources

Radek Sikorski: Putin Is Running Out of Money, and the Worst Is Behind Ukraine - HvyLya
Putin Would Be Nuts to Attack NATO - The Long Game with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer
Sikorski told how the EU will replace the United States on earth and in space - Pravda Poland