Poland's Tusk to Visit Ukraine on Friday

September 18 ------ Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he would visit Ukraine on Friday, Sept. 18, and called for stronger sanctions on Russia.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico will also be in Ukraine, Tusk said during a joint press conference with Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker in Warsaw on Thursday. “I will also meet with Prime Minister Fico in Ukraine, where a summit will be held,” Tusk said, as reported by Ukrainian state media Ukrinform. “Today and two days ago [Russia] attacked, among other targets, gas stations. Tonight, I will be traveling through Ukraine, and after I return, I will report to you on what Ukraine’s energy infrastructure looks like,” he added.

The planned visit comes after multiple Russian strikes along the Ukrainian-Polish border, including on trains carrying foreign diplomats and officials after their attendance at Kyiv’s Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference.

Tusk had warned of potential Russian strikes on the Polish border days earlier, with Moscow threatening that “Warsaw will cease to exist within two or three days” should a war break out with Poland. “The threat of provocations by Russia is real and could materialize at any moment,” Tusk said on Thursday. He also commented on Washington’s recent energy truce proposal in Ukraine, calling the Russian attacks a response to the US proposal. “The response came very quickly and, unfortunately, very close to the Polish border,” Tusk added.

The Polish prime minister also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the US proposal, which Ukraine said it supports and Russia called a “very good idea,” with neither side confirming agreement, as opposed to what US President Donald Trump claimed in his announcement. “And it was probably more an attempt to persuade President Zelensky to have Ukraine stop attacking Russian oil refineries,” Tusk spoke of Trump’s proposal. “So, unfortunately – and I say this with pain – I fear that by winter we will witness increasingly severe Russian attacks on energy infrastructure,” he added.

Source: kyivpost.com