Polish PM unveils 10-point plan for Ukraine
Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have prepared a list of measures the EU should carry out to end the war in Ukraine, including granting Russian deserters asylum, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, has told the Politico news site.
The EU, US and other Western democracies have already imposed harsh sanctions on Russia, but Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia would like to go even further.
"If we want to restore peace, Putin needs to know where the red line is — the line he cannot cross," Morawiecki said.
"The fact that Russia has a nuclear arsenal cannot be an excuse for passivity," he added.
"We must be cognizant of this threat, but it cannot hold us back," Morawiecki said, adding that "otherwise, Putin will only go further."
According to the prime minister, the plan prepared by Warsaw, Prague and Ljubljana is both viable and necessary.
The 10 points suggested by Morawiecki include cutting off all Russian banks from the Swift payment system, a common asylum policy for deserting Russian soldiers, stopping Russian propaganda in Europe, blocking Russian ships from EU ports and freezing road transport in and out of Russia as well as imposing sanctions not only on oligarchs, but on their entire business environment.
The other points include suspending visas for all Russian citizens who want to enter the EU, sanctions on all members of the United Russia party, a party that supports Putin, a total ban on the export to Russia of technologies that can be used for war, and excluding Russia from all international organisations.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has lasted for more than a month now, resulting in thousands of deaths on both sides and millions of refugees. Moscow refuses to call the invasion a war and insists it is a "special military operation" aimed to "de-Nazify" and de-militarise Ukraine.
