Waszczykowski: It’s Russian aggression, and not a civil war in eastern Ukraine

Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski told the Munich Security Conference Saturday, Ukrinform reports.

"What we are seeing now in the east it's not the Ukrainian crisis and not a civil war, but the Russian aggression against Ukraine," Polish minister said.

According to him, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov statements made at the conference indicate that Russia is trying to "create a new international order."

During the questions and answers session after the discussion, Russian representative to NATO Alexander Glushko protested claiming that Russia does not pose threat neither to Poland nor to NATO. Waszczykowski replied to Russian representative that NATO has not threatened Russia, but Moscow did threaten Brussels. He reminded about recent exercises "West" in which Russia, together with Belarus simulated an attack on Poland using nuclear weapons. He called the wars in Georgia and Ukraine, and Moscow's participation in the war in Syria as examples of such threats posed by Russia.

The Polish minister noted that resolutions adopted at the last NATO summit in 2014 in British Newport are already insufficient to ensure security in the east, including Poland. He also said that the declaration of the NATO-Russia of 1997 in the context of the commitment not to deploy NATO military infrastructure in the east is already outdated.

"The western section of the Alliance is protected by the army and military infrastructure, while Central Europe that is the eastern flank, has a low level of security enforcement. We must balance this," stated Waszczykowski.

He added that Poland is interested not in a symbolical NATO presence in Poland, but "the effective defense on the front line."

Recall that Poland expects concrete decisions on deployment of NATO's military infrastructure on eastern flank, particularly in Poland, during the Warsaw NATO Summit scheduled on July 8-9, 2016.