Speaking to the Polish Press Agency (PAP) after a three-day visit to Washington, Sikorski addressed the escalating warnings from the United States concerning China’s assistance to the Russian military apparatus. This comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping embarked on his first visit to Europe since 2019, with scheduled stops in France, Hungary, and Serbia.

According to the Polish Foreign Minister, China should receive a stronger signal of opposition to its actions in aiding Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine.

“We are increasingly receiving information that China, while not directly supplying weapons, is providing a significant amount of components and raw materials for the production of weapons in Russia. It seems to me that we need to convey more clearly to the Chinese side that we consider this a threat, not only to Ukraine but to the entire Europe,” Minister Sikorski highlighted.

Regarding the July NATO summit in Washington and the possible strengthening of the Alliance’s eastern flank, Sikorski stated that troop presence should be increased as the threat from Russia grows, because “if Putin were to win in Ukraine, then of course, we would have to put an even stronger damper on him in our region.”

The Foreign Minister refrained from speculating on the potential U.S. approach to NATO should Trump win the presidential election in November. “We want to have the best possible relations regardless of who is in power here,” he stressed.

Russian frozen assets

The foreign minister commented on the accelerating discussions in the United States, within the G7, and at the EU level regarding the use of frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine.

As he stated, when the EU agreed to place Russian funds in separate accounts and use the interest from them to aid Ukraine, and when a significant portion of Russian bonds had already been liquidated, there was only one step left: transfer the money to Ukraine.

“This discussion is ongoing. I believe we have strong legal grounds, including a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression, which imposes an obligation on us to come to the aid of the victim. But the matter is unprecedented; we have not carried out such an operation in the past, so positions are being reached and are moving in the right direction,” Sikorski assessed.

“In the end, the argument is very simple: someone will have to rebuild Ukraine. It can be done with our own money or with the aggressor's money. I prefer it to be done with the aggressor’s money,” he added.