Sikorski was attending a panel titled ‘Final countdown. Are we even ready to fight and win’, in which he said: “We need to prove to ourselves and to Vladimir Putin that we can maintain this course and ultimately win.”

A part of the Polish Institute of International Affairs PISM Strategic Ark conference, the panel also heard Sikorski admit that the West had partly failed when it came to its relationship with Russia, saying that it had been assumed that “Russia could be civilized.”

He later said that “it is absurd to say that we are tired of this war”, adding that EU countries alone had already allocated €120 billion for the war.

But Sikorski also warned that “Russia is no longer limiting itself to Ukraine”, pointing to the fact that around 90% of the immigrants trying to cross the border from Belarus have a Russian visa.

He also pointed to the Kremlin’s recent border provocations against Lithuania, Estonia and Finland.